Jordan Peterson has compared Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Gaston from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.
The Canadian psychologist is a vocal critic of Trudeau and likened him to the narcissistic macho character from Disney’s 1991 animated film.
Peterson reposted a scathing attack on Trudeau by The Free Press X account, formerly Twitter.
“In the span of five days, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has managed to alienate the government of the largest democracy on Earth; anger key allies from Washington, D.C. to Canberra; and outrage Jews around the world,” read the original post.
Peterson added to his repost, “I’m Number One! Sincerely, @JustinTrudeau,” along with the photo of Gaston looking at himself lovingly in the mirror. The post has had more than 133,000 views at the time of writing.
The original post refers to the disastrous past few months for Trudeau’s prime ministership. It this week culminated in members of the Canadian parliament applauding an Ukrainian man accused of fighting for a Nazi unit in World War II.
Yaroslav Hunka, 98, was invited to attend parliament to coincide with a state visit by the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Anthony Rota, the speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, resigned over the incident and apologized to the country’s Jewish communities.
Faith Moran/Leon Neal/Getty Images
“It’s extremely upsetting that this happened,” Trudeau told reporters on Monday. “The speaker has acknowledged his mistake and has apologized.
“This is something that is deeply embarrassing to the parliament of Canada and, by extension, to all Canadians.”
The political gaffe fueled Russia’s justification for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine to “demilitarize and denazify” the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine’s administration and Zelensky of being neo-Nazis, even though the latter is Jewish.
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies said that Hunka served during World War II as a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as the First Ukrainian Division. It was a voluntary unit mostly made up of ethnic Ukrainians and commanded by Nazis including Heinrich Himmler, who formed the group.
Relations between Canada and India also remain frosty over the assassination of fugitive Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian Sikh separatist leader who called for an independent Sikh state called Khalistan in the Punjab region of India.
Trudeau told parliament in September that “Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India” and Nijjar’s killing on Canadian soil. Trudeau labeled any such involvement as “unacceptable.”
India rejected the claims as “absurd,” leading to a tense meeting between Trudeau and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G20 summit in New Delhi in September and the suspension of trade talks between the two nations. Both countries expelled the other’s top diplomats, and India issued an travel warning to its citizens heading to Canada. It urged them to “exercise utmost caution” when traveling to Canada because “growing anti-India activities and politically condoned hate-crimes.”
India also said that certain Canadian politicians and authorities might be indirectly supporting separatist groups that aim to create the state of Khalistan. Trudeau told reporters in July that his country was merely upholding freedom of expression.
“We have an extremely diverse country, and freedom of expression is something that we have,” Trudeau said.
The Canadian leader publicly blamed India for the crisis and said in the House of Commons that any involvement by the Indian government in Nijjar’s death would be unacceptable.
If claims of Indian involvement were true, said Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, it would be a “grave violation of our sovereignty.”
Allies of both countries, the U.S. and Australia, publicly expressed their concern over the ongoing feud.