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Trudeau Dumps On Bloc Leader’s ‘Ridiculous’ Innuendos About New Minister

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speak to the media about the COVID-19 virus in Ottawa on January 15, 2021.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speak to the media about the COVID-19 virus in Ottawa on January 15, 2021.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has accused Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet of using dangerous language to pander to his base by raising suspicions about the Syrian Muslim identity of Canada’s new transport minister.

Omar Alghabra was appointed to the ministerial role in Tuesday’s cabinet shuffle. The Mississauga MP previously served as the president of the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) before he was first elected to the House of Commons in 2006.

Blanchet released a statement a day later to criticize the credentials of Trudeau’s new team. The Bloc leader made unsubstantiated claims that “questions arise” from Alghabra’s connections to what Blanchet described as “the political Islamic movement.”

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“I was absolutely floored to see a federal party leader use insinuations and carefully coded questions,” Trudeau told reporters Friday outside his Ottawa home.

The prime minister referenced the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last week, incited by U.S. President Donald Trump, as an example of what happens when leaders aren’t careful with their words and “play these dangerous games around intolerance and hate.”

Watch: Facebook sees rise in violent rhetoric. Story continues below video.

The Bloc leader has defended his comments as “legitimate questions” — an explanation Trudeau scoffed off as coy and inadequate.

“That’s ridiculous,” the prime minister said. “That kind of political pandering to the worst elements and to fears and anxieties has no place in Canada and all of us need to stand up strongly to push back against that anywhere it happens in this country.”

The Canadian Arab Federation lost federal funding in 2009 after then-Conservative immigration minister Jason Kenney cited the organization’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah and anti-Semetic sentiments expressed by its leadership.

Alghabra, who was president of the CAF between 2004 to 2005, told the National Post at the time that he has been “on...

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