An previous falsehood resurfaces: that Justin Trudeau is Fidel Castro’s son.

Misinformation has been a key weapon wielded by Canada’s protest motion, and critics of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have returned to 1 simmering falsehood: that Mr. Trudeau is the love baby of the previous Cuban chief Fidel Castro.

The conspiracy concept that Mr. Trudeau is Mr. Castro’s son has gained momentum on social media in latest days. It beforehand unfold after Mr. Castro’s dying in 2016, when Mr. Trudeau hailed him as “a exceptional chief.” He described Mr. Castro, who dominated as a Communist autocrat for nearly 50 years, as “Cuba’s longest-serving president.”

“I do know my father was very proud to name him a buddy, and I had the chance to satisfy Fidel when my father handed away,” Mr. Trudeau mentioned on the time. His father, Pierre Trudeau, served as prime minister for over 15 years. Pierre Trudeau was the primary chief of a NATO member state to go to communist Cuba, and Mr. Castro served as an honorary pallbearer at his funeral, in line with the Canadian Broadcasting Company.

The declare that the Canadian prime minister is Mr. Castro’s “illegitimate son” was additionally amplified by Tucker Carlson in an opinion piece posted on Fox Information’s web site on Friday.

Some proponents of the falsehood have pointed to a placing resemblance between Mr. Castro and Mr. Trudeau. However the information don’t add up, and the Canadian authorities has additionally beforehand denied the competition.

Mr. Trudeau’s mom, Margaret, famously traveled to Cuba and met Mr. Castro at first of 1976. However the go to was greater than 4 years after Mr. Trudeau was born, on Dec. 25, 1971. Given her excessive profile, it might have been extremely unlikely for Mrs. Trudeau to have slipped into Cuba undetected.

Misinformation is only one tactic utilized by some protesters. Whereas the demonstrations outdoors Canadian Parliament started as loosely organized truck convoys and supporters, the Ottawa police say the protesters are displaying indicators of more and more subtle strategies to focus on regulation enforcement operations. On Wednesday evening, the Ottawa police emergency line was “nearly jammed” by 911 calls, a big variety of them traced to United States addresses, mentioned Peter Sloly, Ottawa’s police chief.

Protesters have additionally mocked Mr. Trudeau in latest days by displaying actual photographs of him in blackface. In 2019, on the eve of federal elections, photographs and a video emerged of him dressing up in blackface and brownface within the early Nineties and in 2001.

Mr. Trudeau has lengthy solid himself as a worldwide spokesman for liberal causes, supporting girls’s and Indigenous rights, welcoming immigrants and preventing local weather change and racism. However that fastidiously calibrated picture suffered a blow on the time.

“All these footage you’re seeing of Trudeau in blackface are actual (however he’s not Castro’s love baby),” The National Post, a Canadian newspaper, informed its readers on Friday.