By Brian Platt
One of the weirdest controversies of the Justin Trudeau era now seems to have a resolution: It turns out the prime minister is just really bad at cracking jokes.
On Wednesday, Trudeau decided it was time to address a video clip from last week that had pundits around the world slamming him for mansplaining grammar to a young woman.
The video, taken at a town hall in Edmonton, shows a woman in the midst of an excruciatingly long question about religious charities. At one point she says the phrase “the future of mankind,” which prompts Trudeau to interject and say “We like to say ‘peoplekind,’ not necessarily ‘mankind,’ because it’s more inclusive.”
The clip certainly looks bad for Trudeau; he interrupts and appears to be shaming the woman for using male-gendered language, plus he uses a neologism that his critics find ridiculous. But others suggested that viewing the full version of the exchange makes it clear Trudeau wasn’t being entirely serious, and Trudeau himself has now endorsed that explanation.
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