Journalist once arrested at Trudeau press conference confronts prime minister on beach
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Keean Bexte of the Counter Signal, who has a history of being arrested or strong-armed by security while trying to ask Trudeau questions, managed to grill the prime minister for 10 minutes on a beach in British Columbia.
(LifeSiteNews) –– An independent Canadian journalist tracked down Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during his summer vacation and grilled him for 10 minutes straight on a variety of topics relating to how his government has led Canada for the past few years. The reporter, Keean Bexte of the Counter Signal, was able to get Trudeau to reveal that he would “absolutely not,” despite bad polling numbers, look for a replacement for himself before the next election.
On Tuesday, Bexte posted a photo on X of himself and Trudeau walking on a beach in Tofino, British Columbia, which is one of the leader’s favorite annual vacation spots.
In the post, Bexte made it a point to note that in the past “Trudeau has had me arrested for the crime of attending a press conference, his officers have pushed me into traffic, and I’ve had to sue to gain access to election scrums.”
“This time, he couldn’t get away. For 10 minutes I grilled him on the beach,” he wrote on X.
Bexte had planned the exclusive Counter Signal interview carefully as multiple times in the past he has been arrested, or pushed away by security for just getting close to Trudeau to try and ask him questions
This time, however, perhaps not realizing who he was, Trudeau told his security to back down and then proceeded to walk with Bexte on the beach, after first going to talk with his young son, in what overall can only be described as a sometimes-tense, awkward interview.
At the start of the interview, which is posted online behind a paywall, Trudeau put his hands on Bexte to which the reporter replied, “Please don’t put your hands on me.”
Bexte then proceeded to ask Trudeau a question about why his health minister, Mark Holland, recently claimed that families taking car road trips will make “the planet burn,” and how he could reconcile this with the fact his own family vacation involved using a jet to get to Tofino.
Trudeau refused to give him a straight answer and only asked Bexte how his vacation was, but then claimed that as prime minister he must follow the “rules” and take an air force “jet” to get to his vacation.
He then asked Bexte, “Do you think a Prime Minister should be able to have a family life?” to which Bexte replied, “Absolutely.”
Trudeau then rejected the idea flouted by many that Trudeau is “hiding” from his caucus by going on vacation. Following a shock by-election loss in a Liberal stronghold in Toronto in June, Liberals and the media sounded the alarm over Trudeau’s unpopularity. The prime minister, however, said that a caucus meeting to address the problem was not possible.
In response to a question from Bexte about the Trudeau government’s proposed Online Harms Act, which many experts have warned is designed to radically alter internet use in Canada by stifling certain speech, Trudeau claimed that the bill will do “no” such thing.
Trudeau also claimed to Bexte that he “works more days a week than the vast majority of Canadians,” saying his summer vacation is the “only” ten days a year he gets time to spend with his kids on the beach.