In both Canada and the United States, groping scandals have opened a window into the hypocrisies that infect national politics. American Christian voters may claim to support politicians who embody family values. But in 2016, more than 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for a man who stood accused of groping women “like an octopus,” and who was caught on tape bragging about doing so. In Canada, on the other hand, the more-feminist-than-thou prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has spent the first days of summer issuing contradictory explanations of a recently publicized encounter he had with a female journalist at an August 2000 music festival in British Columbia.

The journalist called what happened “groping.” Though no one has any idea what body part was touched, or in what way, Trudeau reportedly felt the need to apologize to the woman at the time. But in recent days, the Prime Minister has changed his story. He now claims either not to remember the details of the encounter, or to suggest that the truth of the matter is unknowable because, as in a scene from Rashomon, “the same interactions can be experienced very differently from one person to the next.”

The story has been front-page news in Canada for the last week—though seemingly not because anyone particularly cares about the R-rated details. As Robyn Urback of the CBC writes:

This is about hypocrisy—not about what did or did not happen at a music festival 18 years ago. It is about ‘believing women,’ until it happens to you; about taking all allegations of sexual misconduct seriously, except if they happen to pass some arbitrary expiration date. It is about employing an unwavering zero-tolerance policy, which, in practice, ends up showing some tolerance for the man at the top.