TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, embroiled in a blackface picture scandal, will appear on Friday in the country's most ethnically diverse city where he will make an announcement on gun control in a bid to get his campaign back on issue.
Trudeau is campaigning in Toronto with less than five weeks to go before the Oct. 21 national election and two days after bombshell images of him in blackface emerged.
The Liberal Party leader vowed on Thursday to continue his push for re-lection and asked for forgiveness. He will make an announcement on Friday about gun control, a party official said, in a city that has been rocked by gun violence.
This month, a 17-year-old was killed by gunfire in and five other people were wounded in a community just outside of Toronto, and two days later another person was killed in a shooting on a major highway.
Trudeau's campaign was upended when Time magazine on Wednesday published an image of the prime minister, who is known to be strong advocate for multiculturalism, with his face blackened at a 2001 "Arabian Nights" party when he was a 29-year-old teacher at a Vancouver private school.
Other images have since emerged, and Trudeau said on Thursday he was "wary" of ruling out the existence of even more because he could not remember those that had already come to light.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren, writing by Steve Scherer; Editing by David Gregorio)
