Because he was joking. If he really meant it he never would have said it.
I sorta get the feeling you'd try and paint Trudeau as the victim if you could?
Why? I don't support him politicly. His one liners get on my nerves. I'm not even defending him. He could be guilty. I don't know.
"Believe women" is an important concept that shouldn't be abused to mean something it doesn't. It means believe women enough to institute an investigation. It does not mean allow women to declare men guilty while refusing an investigation.
"No comment" means "no comment" not "no comment" except this and that but now no comment, whoops, one more comment, now no comment anymore. I don't want to talk about it.
The publisher said she was "distressed". It seems at most he slapped or grabbed a butt cheek but that would be assault in my book so it seems he must have just touched it.
This can certainly be distressing, very distressing for someone with prior experience of assault, but the incident really doesn't sound too disturbing to repeat.
I totally respect her right to say, when first contacted, "I stand by what I wrote but I don't want to comment any farther " then, not commenting anymore.
If she does want to continue talking she should be speaking to an investigator (investigative reporter) and answering questions about what happened.
I have defended the me too movement based on women coming forward and being specific about what happened to them or based on multiple complainants stepping forward or evidence or witnesses, even in the form of the grapevine. In fact I have frequently emphasized the significance of it being common knowledge on the grapevine that certain men should be watched out for. For example, universities stopped sending female interns to Ghomeshi.
Trudeau has been famous his entire life. No one has ever forgotten anything even a tiny bit remarkable about his behavior. He has been documented since birth. If there was even one other complainant it would strenthen both complaints. It is still possible this one time he did something that I too would have interpreted as groping. But if so, it seems it was a one off that no one witnessed. It we are to believe the publisher it lasted the blink of an eye and involved a cheek. I'm not saying that's okay but if that is the sum total of what Trudeau is guilty of over the 40 odd years of his life it's as mild as it gets in my book particularly as he was not in a power relationship with her. He was just a teacher at the time. Yes, famous as his father's son, but not anybody special in his own right. The me too movement is not about crucifying a guy for a single incident of sexual harassment in his entire life. That doesn't even rate the grapevine. The grapevine only takes off when more than one woman says yup, he did to me too.
Trudeau is so high profile that if he made a habit of inappropriate behavior there would be at least some smoke beyond this one incident.
One incident is enough, IF the woman is willing to speak to an investigator. She isn't so the story will die unless she keeps piping up to say "it happened but I won't say what happened". Now that she gave her name more people are going to be asking her what happened so if she wanted to quiet things down it was a strange move. There is simply no reason for her to refuse to say what happened at this point. Surely it cannot have been that traumatizing.
This is the type of incident that generates the following.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/christie-blatchford-unsettling-part-of-...
Except because it's Trudeau Blatchford won't say a word.