Canada: Trudeau continues election campaign after threats to safety
Prime minister had been forced to wear body armour the day before
Montreal: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sunday he plans to continue campaigning as normal after wearing body armour the night before, a move the CBC reported was due to threats to his security.
“This will not change at all how I campaign,” Trudeau said, on the sidelines of a campaign event in York, a week ahead of Canadian legislative elections.
Trudeau was in his shirtsleeves, as he normally is when campaigning, after wearing body armor under a shirt and jacket on Saturday.
When asked to answer journalists’ questions about the threats against him, Trudeau explained, “My first concern was for my family and for all the Canadians in the room,” but refused to comment further.
Trudeau’s main rival, Conservative Andrew Scheer, took to Twitter Saturday evening to stress that “threats against political leaders have absolutely no place in our democracy.”
Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the New Democratic Party (NPD), called the threats against Trudeau “troubling” in a Saturday night tweet.
The liberal leader was more than an hour and a half late to an event Saturday in Mississauga, a city in the suburbs of Toronto, where about 2,000 supporters were waiting for him.
There was also a higher security presence than normal following a security threat, the CBC reported.
His campaign team declined to give reason for Trudeau’s increased security detail.
The prime minister gave his speech without incident, surrounded by multiple police officers, and then mingled with the crowd before leaving the room.
His wife, Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau, was expected on stage to introduce him but did not appear, local media said.
During the election campaign, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is keeping a daily record of online hate messages aimed at political leaders, fearing possible violent acts, the CBC said.