The Jewish member of Canadian Parliament whom Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused of standing with ‘swastika wavers’ has spoken out to demand an apology, saying he is driving divisions in the country.
‘He has not apologized, and I expect an apology,’ MP Melissa Lantsman said in an interview with Fox News. ‘I think the division in this country is growing and it’s growing because of the prime minister’s rhetoric on this.’
Lantsman, a 37-year-old Conservative MP for the Toronto suburb of Thornhill, had confronted Trudeau in Parliament on Wednesday over his invocation of the draconian Emergencies Act to crack down on the Freedom Convoy protests against vaccine mandates.
Liberal Party leader Trudeau responded with scorn to her complaints, saying: ‘Conservative Party members can stand with people who wave swastikas, they can stand with people who wave the confederate flag.’
‘We will chose to stand with Canadians who deserve to be able to get to their jobs, and get their lives back. These illegal protests need to stop and they will.’
MP Melissa Lantsman (right) has spoken out to demand an apology from Trudeau, saying he is driving divisions in the country
Liberal Party leader Trudeau responded to Lantsman in Parliament accusing her of standing with ‘people who wave swastikas’ after she criticized his use of emergency powers
Ontario Provincial Police officers walk in front of the ongoing trucker blockade protest in Ottawa on Thursday
Trudeau’s comments were sparked uproar in the house, and forced the Speaker of the House to reprimand him and others, reminding them of rules against using ‘inflammatory’ language in Parliament during the debates.
After being reprimanded, Trudeau refused to apologize and again repeated that the blockades were illegal, and the measures to repress the protests were necessary.
Lantsman said in the interview on Wednesday night that Trudeau was showing his ‘true colors’ with his denigrating remark.
‘I sit there and watch him divide and wedge and stigmatize Canadians every single day, and today the rest of Canada saw a G7 prime minister go after a Jewish member of Parliament, and then walk away and not apologize,’ she said.
The Conservative MP, who is descended from Holocaust survivors, said after Trudeau’s remarks she had received a flood of phone calls and emails accusing her of supporting Nazism.
‘When you accuse somebody of standing with a swastika, you get you get an influx of people calling you Nazi, and that’s not okay,’ she said.
Melissa Lantsman is seen on Wednesday asking a question of Justin Trudeau in Parliament
‘And [Trudeau] is driving that — he’s been driving division in this country throughout, since the protests started and before the protests started, for his political gain,’ added Lantsman.
‘I think his leadership is in trouble. The country’s in trouble and he’s lost control of the situation,’ she said. ‘We’ve got an urban-rural divide. We’ve got a east-west divide and that’s being wedged by the prime minister.’
Lantsman also tweeted: ‘I think the Prime Minister should think long and hard about his own history before singling out a Jewish Member of Parliament and falsely accusing me of standing with a Swastika.
‘What a disgraceful statement unbecoming of anyone in public office – he owes me an apology.’
This is the second time Trudeau has claimed swastikas are being waved by protesters, and he smeared them as being ‘swastika-wavers’ in the first week of protests.
A flag incorporating the Nazi symbol was spotted in the initial days of the protests, but a DailyMail.com reporter has not seen any after a week in Ottawa.
On Thursday morning, police poured into downtown Ottawa in what truckers feared was a prelude to a crackdown on their protest against vaccine mandates
Police are followed by yelling protesters as they attempt to hand out a notices telling protesters in Ottawa to ‘leave the area now’ on Thursday
The flyer read: ‘You must leave the area now. Anyone blocking the streets, or assisting others in blocking the streets, are committing a criminal offence and you may be arrested’
A photo of the symbol was posted by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs Twitter , on January 30, with a statement that read: ‘Twenty-four hours after International Holocaust Remembrance Day and on The National Day of Remembrance of the Québec City Mosque Attack and Action against Islamophobia, there are Nazi flags being flown in public, in Canada, on Parliament Hill. This should be horrifying to all Canadians.’
On Thursday morning, police poured into downtown Ottawa in what truckers feared was a prelude to a crackdown on their nearly three-week, street-clogging protest against Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions.
Work crews in the capital began erecting fences outside Parliament, and for the second day in a row, officers handed out warnings to the protesters to leave. Busloads of police converged on the area.
‘It’s high time that these illegal and dangerous activities stop,’ Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared in Parliament, not far from where the more than 300 trucks were parked.
‘They are a threat to our economy and our relationship with trading partners,’ he said. ‘They are a threat to public safety.’
Many of the protesters in the self-styled Freedom Convoy reacted to the warnings with scorn.
‘I’m prepared sit on my ass and watch them hit me with pepper spray,’ said one of their leaders, Pat King. As for the big rigs parked bumper-to-bumper, he said: ‘There’s no tow trucks in Canada that will touch them.’
