Tories, NDP take aim at Trudeau’s Ukraine-hockey joke

Watch above: Federal Immigration Minister Chris Alexander slammed Liberal leader Justin Trudeau for his joke about Ukraine and Russia’s Olympic hockey result

OTTAWA – Justin Trudeau was absent from the House of Commons on Monday as the Ukrainian ambassador demanded an apology for the Liberal leader’s flippant remark about the crisis in Ukraine while Conservatives and the NDP pounced.

The Conservatives took aim at Trudeau on Monday for his weekend tongue-in-cheek remarks linking the upheaval in Ukraine to Russia’s Olympic hockey humiliation.

Industry Minister James Moore also took to Twitter to draw attention to Trudeau’s joke on Radio-Canada’s “Tout Le Monde en Parle” on Sunday night. “Tout Le Monde en Parle” is humour-infused current events program.

The NDP, meantime, put up a YouTube video featuring his comments:

At the end of a big Olympic hockey weekend, in which the Canadian men’s team took home gold following a win over Sweden, Trudeau was asked about the situation in Ukraine and the prospect of Russian involvement.

Trudeau, consistently ahead of the Tories and the NDP in public opinion polls, joked that Russia could be fuming after being eliminated late last week from the medal round in Winter Games hockey.

READ MORE: Ukraine’s turmoil brings tough challenge to Putin

“It’s very worrisome,” Trudeau said after telling the panel that he now considers Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to be illegitimate.

“Especially since Russia lost in hockey, they will be in a bad mood. We are afraid of a Russian intervention in Ukraine.”

Yanukovych is in hiding, his regime in tatters, following months of pro-Western protests in Ukraine.

Liberal MP Marc Garneau chided the Conservatives for their attack on Trudeau, noting how Liberal delegates at the party’s policy convention in Montreal had just a few hours earlier passed an emergency resolution calling on the support of a transition to democracy in Ukraine.

The resolution also called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper not to allow “any foreign power” to interfere with the will of the Ukrainian people.

“James Moore and Jason Kenney are trying to take advantage of this for cheap partisan reasons,” he said.

“If you look at the entire transcript, you’ll see that Justin Trudeau spoke very seriously about the situation in Ukraine, and anyone who’s been on ‘Tout Le Monde En Parle’ knows what kind of show it is.”