When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently addressed the European Union Parliament and warned of growing threats to democracy, he received an angry backlash from some elected members who accused him of responding to the recent anti-vaccine mandate convoy protest like a dictator.
The public rebukes by a handful of far-right, populist and anti-vaccine members of the European Parliament claiming Trudeau violated civil rights in response to the protest that occupied Ottawa for almost a month went viral on social media.
Trudeau’s Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in history in February, giving police and other authorities extraordinary powers to disrupt the protest.
Most of the European Parliament members in attendance for Trudeau’s speech in Brussels, the Belgian capital, were seen giving the prime minister a standing ovation. The assembly’s public galleries were full for the speech.
After Trudeau’s address, some of the 705 elected members of the assembly who hail from the 27 countries in the European Union were invited to respond to Trudeau’s remarks. Most MEPs were welcoming but a handful used the opportunity to attack the prime minister.
The European Union Parliament has a history of making news when outspoken members make controversial remarks. Some of those members represent parties that oppose the existence of the EU itself.
CBC News takes a look at what was said, who said it and how the European Parliament is vastly different from parliaments elsewhere in the democratic world.
What did MEPs say about Trudeau?
Describing Trudeau as someone who “tramples” fundamental human rights and freedoms, Independent Croatian MEP Mislav Kolakušić said Canada once stood for civil rights but now seems more like a “dictatorship of the worst kind.”
“Under your quasi-liberal boot in recent months,” Kolakušić said, “we watched how you trample women with horses, how you block the bank accounts of single parents so that they can’t even pay their children’s education and medicine, that they can’t pay utilities, mortgages for their homes.”
Ontario’s police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit, launched an investigation on Feb. 20 after a 49-year-old woman reported being seriously injured by a Toronto Police Service officer on a horse as police were clearing out people who had occupied Ottawa’s downtown core.
Independent Croatian MEP Mislav Kolakušić, shown here in a picture posted to his European Union parliamentary website, accused Trudeau of ‘dictatorship of the worst kind’ during the prime minister’s trip to Brussels this week. (mislavkolakusic.eu)
“Mr. Trudeau, you are a disgrace for any democracy,” said German MEP Christine Anderson, the political spokesperson for the ID parliamentary group in the European Parliament through her party Alternative for Germany.
Anderson went on to accuse Trudeau of civil rights violations during the trucker convoy protest, calling him a dictator who treats citizens as “terrorists.”
Another Alternative for Germany MEP, Bernhard Zimniok, accused Trudeau of “trampling on democratic rights” by cracking down on people for protesting “disproportionate” public health measures.
Who are the MEPs who accused Trudeau of being a dictator?
Mislav Kolakušić, whose speech in the assembly went viral on his Twitter feed, is a failed Croatian presidential candidate and is not affiliated with any political party in the European Parliament. He has aligned himself with anti-vaccine voices inside and outside of the assembly.
Reuters reported earlier this year that Kolakušić had accused French President Emmanuel Macron of “murdering citizens” through vaccine mandates and that he claimed “tens of thousands of” Europeans had died from vaccine side-effects during the pandemic.
Reuters said Europe’s drug regulator pushed back against that claim, describing it as “incorrect” and a “misrepresentation of data.”
Kolakušić was also one of six MEPs censured by the European Parliament for refusing to present an EU Digital COVID certificate to enter the assembly. Anderson was another of the MPs punished in that incident.
Christine Anderson, an MEP for Germany’s anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD), attends a campaign event ahead of the EU election in Frankfurt in 2019. Anderson told the European Parliament this week that Trudeau is ‘a disgrace for any democracy.’ (Reuters/Ralph Orlowski)
A German court ruled recently that the party is “a suspected threat to democracy” after an administrative court in Cologne found that there are “sufficient indications of anti-constitutional goals within the AfD.”
Alternative for Germany is one of the national parties that fall under the Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament. With 63 members from 10 countries, it is the fifth-largest group in the assembly.
Identity and Democracy is made up of domestic political parties opposed to the EU. They hold far-right positions on issues like immigration, EU membership and social welfare. The ID group includes France’s Rassemblement National party, which was founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen.
What is the European Parliament?
As the second-largest elected assembly in the world after India’s Parliament (which has 788 seats to Europe’s 705), the European Parliament is one of the seven institutions of the European Union. And while it’s called a parliament, it more closely resembles a city council or the UN General Assembly than a parliament in the Westminster tradition.
The assembly sits in two cities: Strasbourg, France and Brussels. It does not have a prime minister. The person who holds the title of “president” in the European Parliament is not a head of government in any sense. The president acts more like a Speaker in the Westminster system, presiding over sittings and chairing debates.
The European Parliament also does not have government and opposition sides, so there are no equivalents to cabinet ministers sitting in the assembly.
Unlike national parliaments, the European Parliament cannot propose legislation. That task is reserved for the European Commission, the appointed executive branch of the EU that functions as a cabinet and acts on behalf of elected member governments.
The European Parliament can amend or reject legislation, has some budgetary approval powers and is required to approve some acts of international co-operation, such as data-sharing initiatives and funding for international development initiatives.
The institution rarely makes the news unless it takes some extraordinary political action — such as refusing to approve the EU budget — or unless its members make outlandish or controversial statements.
It also has a tradition of seating MEPs who are vehemently opposed to the European Union’s existence. Nigel Farage, the former leader of the UK Independence Party and the Brexit Party — political entities assembled to pull the United Kingdom out of the EU — led his party to 29 seats in the European Parliament in 2019.
WATCH | Nigel Farage insults Herman van Rompuy, calls EU president a ‘damp rag’:
MONTREAL – A Quebec political party has voted to support one of its members facing backlash for saying that racialized people are regularly disparaged at the provincial legislature.
Québec solidaire members adopted an emergency resolution at the party’s convention late Sunday condemning the hate directed at Haroun Bouazzi, without endorsing his comments.
Bouazzi, who represents a Montreal riding, had told a community group that he hears comments every day at the legislature that portray North African, Muslim, Black or Indigenous people as the “other,” and that paint their cultures are dangerous or inferior.
Other political parties have said Bouazzi’s remarks labelled elected officials as racists, and the co-leaders of his own party had rebuked him for his “clumsy and exaggerated” comments.
Bouazzi, who has said he never intended to describe his colleagues as racist, thanked his party for their support and for their commitment to the fight against systemic racism.
Party co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said after Sunday’s closed-door debate that he considers the matter to be closed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 18, 2024.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Democrats who control both chambers of the Virginia legislature are hoping to make good on promises made on the campaign trail, including becoming the first Southern state to expand constitutional protections for abortion access.
The House Privileges and Elections Committee advanced three proposed constitutional amendments Wednesday, including a measure to protect reproductive rights. Its members also discussed measures to repeal a now-defunct state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and ways to revise Virginia’s process to restore voting rights for people who served time for felony crimes.
“This meeting was an important next step considering the moment in history we find ourselves in,” Democratic Del. Cia Price, the committee chair, said during a news conference. “We have urgent threats to our freedoms that could impact constituents in all of the districts we serve.”
The at-times raucous meeting will pave the way for the House and Senate to take up the resolutions early next year after lawmakers tabled the measures last January. Democrats previously said the move was standard practice, given that amendments are typically introduced in odd-numbered years. But Republican Minority Leader Todd Gilbert said Wednesday the committee should not have delved into the amendments before next year’s legislative session. He said the resolutions, particularly the abortion amendment, need further vetting.
“No one who is still serving remembers it being done in this way ever,” Gilbert said after the meeting. “Certainly not for something this important. This is as big and weighty an issue as it gets.”
The Democrats’ legislative lineup comes after Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, to the dismay of voting-rights advocates, rolled back a process to restore people’s civil rights after they completed sentences for felonies. Virginia is the only state that permanently bans anyone convicted of a felony from voting unless a governor restores their rights.
“This amendment creates a process that is bounded by transparent rules and criteria that will apply to everybody — it’s not left to the discretion of a single individual,” Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, the patron of the voting rights resolution, which passed along party lines, said at the news conference.
Though Democrats have sparred with the governor over their legislative agenda, constitutional amendments put forth by lawmakers do not require his signature, allowing the Democrat-led House and Senate to bypass Youngkin’s blessing.
Instead, the General Assembly must pass proposed amendments twice in at least two years, with a legislative election sandwiched between each statehouse session. After that, the public can vote by referendum on the issues. The cumbersome process will likely hinge upon the success of all three amendments on Democrats’ ability to preserve their edge in the House and Senate, where they hold razor-thin majorities.
It’s not the first time lawmakers have attempted to champion the three amendments. Republicans in a House subcommittee killed a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights in 2022, a year after the measure passed in a Democrat-led House. The same subcommittee also struck down legislation supporting a constitutional amendment to repeal an amendment from 2006 banning marriage equality.
On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers voted 16-5 in favor of legislation protecting same-sex marriage, with four Republicans supporting the resolution.
“To say the least, voters enacted this (amendment) in 2006, and we have had 100,000 voters a year become of voting age since then,” said Del. Mark Sickles, who sponsored the amendment as one of the first openly gay men serving in the General Assembly. “Many people have changed their opinions of this as the years have passed.”
A constitutional amendment protecting abortion previously passed the Senate in 2023 but died in a Republican-led House. On Wednesday, the amendment passed on party lines.
If successful, the resolution proposed by House Majority Leader Charniele Herring would be part of a growing trend of reproductive rights-related ballot questions given to voters. Since 2022, 18 questions have gone before voters across the U.S., and they have sided with abortion rights advocates 14 times.
The voters have approved constitutional amendments ensuring the right to abortion until fetal viability in nine states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Ohio and Vermont. Voters also passed a right-to-abortion measure in Nevada in 2024, but it must be passed again in 2026 to be added to the state constitution.
As lawmakers debated the measure, roughly 18 members spoke. Mercedes Perkins, at 38 weeks pregnant, described the importance of women making decisions about their own bodies. Rhea Simon, another Virginia resident, anecdotally described how reproductive health care shaped her life.
Then all at once, more than 50 people lined up to speak against the abortion amendment.
“Let’s do the compassionate thing and care for mothers and all unborn children,” resident Sheila Furey said.
The audience gave a collective “Amen,” followed by a round of applause.
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Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
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Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative.
NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting him in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the appointment. Kennedy, he said, would “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Kennedy, a former Democrat who ran as an independent in this year’s presidential race, abandoned his bid after striking a deal to give Trump his endorsement with a promise to have a role in health policy in the administration.
He and Trump have since become good friends, with Kennedy frequently receiving loud applause at Trump’s rallies.
The expected appointment was first reported by Politico Thursday.
A longtime vaccine skeptic, Kennedy is an attorney who has built a loyal following over several decades of people who admire his lawsuits against major pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has pushed for tighter regulations around the ingredients in foods.
With the Trump campaign, he worked to shore up support among young mothers in particular, with his message of making food healthier in the U.S., promising to model regulations imposed in Europe. In a nod to Trump’s original campaign slogan, he named the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”
It remains unclear how that will square with Trump’s history of deregulation of big industries, including food. Trump pushed for fewer inspections of the meat industry, for example.
Kennedy’s stance on vaccines has also made him a controversial figure among Democrats and some Republicans, raising question about his ability to get confirmed, even in a GOP-controlled Senate. Kennedy has espoused misinformation around the safety of vaccines, including pushing a totally discredited theory that childhood vaccines cause autism.
He also has said he would recommend removing fluoride from drinking water. The addition of the material has been cited as leading to improved dental health.
HHS has more than 80,000 employees across the country. It houses the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the National Institutes of Health.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
