The dark arts of ‘oppo’ researchers

OTTAWA — Election day is nearing, which means the policies and hard-earned accomplishments of political candidates can instantly be overshadowed by what they said on Twitter nine years ago.

That is, it’s that time when opposition researchers dig up dirt on their political opponents, overturning every rock and screen-grabbing every ill-advised Facebook screed. Dedicated teams from the leading federal political parties have been hard at work sifting through the entire online histories of opponents, all in the hopes they will tip the balance of any given riding in their favour.

The results of so-called “oppo” research can be devastating, stripping away the entire identity of a candidate and replacing it with a singular emphasis on just a few unfortunate words or outdated jokes. The specific degree of wrongdoing rarely matters; even a snippet of bad publicity will cause any potential backbencher to be permanently cast aside.

Opposition research isn’t new, but social media has brought about a kind of golden age in this dark art. A number of candidates were forced to step aside during the 2015 election due to social media-related gaffes, and 2019 is likely to ensnare a few more.

Such efforts were on full display last month when Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale tweeted a video from 2005 of Conservative leader Andrew Scheer making a speech in which he argued against samesex marriage, partly on the grounds that gay couples cannot undergo the “inherent” marital role of the “natural procreation of children.” (The issue prompted days of media coverage, despite the largely overlooked fact that Goodale had himself voted in favour of a motion in 1999 stating that marriage should “remain the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others”).

Here are a few examples of social media-related gaffes that ended candidates’ political careers.

ALA BUZREBA “BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT” TWEETS

In August 2015, Liberal candidate Ala Buzreba was forced to address a series of tweets she posted four years earlier, when she suggested that another Twitter user should “go blow your brains out you waste of sperm.” In another comment, she told a pro-Israel tweeter that their mother “should have used that coat hanger” rather than give birth to the person. Buzreba apologized and resigned from her Calgary Nose Hill riding. She later told the CBC how her entire professional life had been overshadowed by comments that she claims to no longer recognize. “Nothing else I’ve ever said or done is looked at — it’s just those tweets,” she said.

JERRY BANCE PEE-BRAINED COFFEE BREAK

In a 2012 house call to repair a leaky sink, maintenance man Jerry Bance took a leak of his own, but chose as his repository a coffee mug rather than a conventional porcelain toilet. Bance, who was running for the Conservative Party in 2015 in the Scarborough–Rouge Park riding, was caught on hidden camera peeing into a coffee mug, then lightly rinsing the mug before setting it back on the counter of the stranger’s home. The Conservatives immediately said Bance would no longer be running for the party for not being truthful during the screening process.

TIM DUTAUD PRANK CALLS

Conservative candidate Tim Dutaud came under fire after a series of YouTube videos appeared to show him making prank calls to strangers, which included Dutaud mimicking the voice of a mentally disabled person and faking an orgasm to a female call centre worker. The Toronto-Danforth candidate stepped down soon after the videos were found. Former prime minister Stephen Harper was asked to address Dutaud’s videos at an event in September 2015, where the Conservative Party was set to announce a tax credit for disabled people. Dutaud’s resignation as candidate came just hours after video emerged of candidate Jerry Bance using a coffee cup as a urinal. “What this says is we keep the highest standard for candidates, and these two individuals are no longer candidates,” Harper. Several of the videos by Dutaud, which were posted to YouTube using a fictitious name “The UniCaller,” received more than 20,000 views. The tone of the videos did not appear to be malicious.

KAREN WANG “INDIAN DESCENT” POST

Karen Wang, the Liberal candidate for Burnaby South, stepped out of a byelection earlier this year after she had used the Chinese social media platform WeChat to make the observation that her opponent, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, was “of Indian descent!,” according to media reports. Wang also referred to herself as the “only Chinese candidate” in Burnaby South, according to reports, and said that if she could “garner 16,000 votes I will easily win the byelection, control the election race and make history!” Some observers claimed her stepping down pointed to a subtle contradiction on the part of the Liberal Party, who had likely decided to run Wang in the region in part because of her Chinese background, but who then pulled back after Wang drew explicit ethnic lines. The riding is roughly 40 per cent Chinese, according to 2016 census data. Wang later apologized, saying the comments “didn’t reflect my intent.”