Halifax councillor’s tweet lands him in hot water, again
A Halifax city councillor who has been criticized for making racially insensitive comments is coming under fresh scrutiny for retweeting a letter from a Canadian group some say is a white supremacist organization.
On Thursday, Coun. Matt Whitman retweeted a letter addressed to Halifax Mayor Mike Savage and the council from ID Canada, a selfdescribed “ethno- nationalist” group created as “a response to Canada’s decaying identity, increased third-world immigration and the prevalence of anti-european sentiments.”
The document was critical of the municipality’s decision to take down a statue of Halifax’s controversial founder, Edward Cornwallis, and place it in storage while council determines its long-term fate.
The one-page letter said the statue’s removal represented “an egregious affront to our past” and a “brutal disregard toward the accomplishments of Canada’s European founders.”
Another councillor, Deputy Mayor Waye Mason, said he was stunned when he saw the retweet after someone pointed it out to him Thursday afternoon.
He immediately took to Twitter to scold Whitman for retweeting the letter from the group.
“You are retweeting a neonazi hate group. I am speechless. What the hell is wrong with you?” tweeted Mason.
For his part, Whitman acknow- ledged that he didn’t have time to look into the group before retweeting it, saying, “I don’t background check every tweet I see.”
He said he has deleted the retweet and blocked the group since, also charging that Mason’s Twitter comments were politically motivated.
The incident marks the latest controversy involving the councillor for Hammonds Plains-st. Margarets.
Last October, Whitman issued an apology for using the word “Negro” in an interview, prompting public outcry and at least one official complaint to the municipality.
Whitman also apologized for a video he posted online that used racially insensitive language. In the video, Whitman yelled “Chinese fire drill!” as he and a friend scrambled from a car.