Wikipedia
Elbowgate was an incident in which Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was accused of having "manhandled" two opposition members of parliament—one Conservative and one NDP—in the House of Commons on May 18, 2016. It took place as opposition MPs sought to delay a closure motion on the final reading of Bill C-14, a bill to amend the Criminal Code to allow physician-assisted death. Numerous MPs, including Green Party leader Elizabeth May, have suggested that Trudeau's actions may be explained by the time-sensitive nature of this bill, which had to be passed before the Supreme Court invalidated certain sections of the Criminal Code that could have put voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted death in a legislative grey area.
As the Conservative Party's chief opposition whip Gord Brown was moving down the opposition side of the aisle toward his seat, three NDP members of parliament— Ruth Ellen Brosseau, David Christopherson, and NDP leader Tom Mulcair—attempted to block his path in an effort to delay the vote. Custom has it that, before a vote begins, the government and official-opposition whips walk into the House together after the bell has rung, walk up the aisle on their own sides, then sit down after bowing toward the Speaker and each other.
The government whip, Liberal MP Andrew Leslie, and Government House Leader, Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc, had walked down his side of the aisle, but Brown was unable to move past at least the three NDP MPs. In interviews with CBC news, Green Party leader Elizabeth May affirmed that the NDP members were deliberately seeking to disrupt proceedings in their obstinate refusal to clear the aisle. Watching the situation, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau crossed the floor of the House, took hold of Brown's arm to steer him through the group, and reportedly shouted to the other MPs "Get the f*** out of my way." Video and audio footage of the incident, however, indicates that Trudeau uttered no such exclamation. In the confusion, Trudeau accidentally elbowed Brosseau in the chest. Brosseau grimaced and clutched her chest, then left the chamber after speaking to Mulcair. She later told the House she had felt overwhelmed and had gone to sit in the lobby, missing the vote as a result. The incident prompted a shouting match on the opposition side of the aisle between Trudeau and Mulcair, in which Mulcair called the Prime Minister "pathetic."
The following day, MPs spent five hours discussing the altercation. Trudeau apologized to the House several times for his actions. Brosseau said the public later accused her, in telephone calls to her office, of "crying wolf." The all-party Committee on Procedure and House Affairs decided on May 31, 2016 that Trudeau would face no scrutiny or parliamentary sanctions for the incident, a decision that paralleled public opinion on the matter; according to polls taken the week after the incident, the majority of Canadians indicated that they saw the incident as “no big deal” or, at most, a “momentary lapse of judgement.”