After brownface scandal, how do minority Canadians view Trudeau?

Personal scandals or public policies – which matter more to race relations? That’s a question voters in one of Toronto’s majority-minority neighborhoods are grappling with in the wake of images of the Canadian prime minister in brownface.

As a black woman and immigrant, Bridget Phillip says she understands the subtleties of hidden racism in Canadian society, even if she herself has never been the direct victim of it.

But when she saw the now infamous images of her Prime Minister Justin Trudeau donning black- and brownface in his past, she says she wasn’t offended – and didn’t think it had anything to do with systematic racism in Canada.

“We’re happy that they’re talking about it. But sometimes you have to talk about it for the right reasons,” says Ms. Phillip, in a shopping mall on Sunday in one of Toronto’s most multicultural neighborhoods. “There are a lot more important things to talk about than to dwell on what just happened.”

Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s acknowledgement last week that his own “blind spot” was behind the decision to paint his face dark as Aladdin at a school fundraiser while he was a teacher, amid other incidents, has forced Canada to challenge its own biases. In a country celebrated for its multiculturalism, many have in the past week called for a teaching moment.

But in Toronto’s Jane and Finch area, which is majority minority, voters expressed frustration at a “gotcha”-style politics that is overshadowing the policies they care most about – access to education, affordable housing, and a reduction of gun violence, for example – and want Canada to move on.

“We just don’t talk about it”

It’s not that they are OK with the status quo. Despite its embrace of Syrian refugees or welcoming rhetoric toward immigrants, those interviewed say, Canada fails racial minorities at many turns, whether it be higher victimization rates of gun shootings or greater barriers to getting jobs.