Know when to say you don’t know
In this daily feature until Election Day, the National Post captures a telling moment in time from the 2015 campaign trail.
Standing in front of a parked city bus with “Welcome to Edmonton” blinking on its front sign, Thomas Mulcair squinted with what looked like a twinge of pain as CTV reporter Laurie Graham asked him an extended question about NDPers screwing up.
One of Mulcair’s senior aides still had his job after referring to Roman Catholic Church homophobic child-molesters on Twitter, while Vancouver-area MP Fin Donnelly was refusing to apologize after releasing false information about the family of the drowned Syrian toddler, Alan Kurdi.
And finally, Graham finished, Mulcair had a candidate in Alberta whose husband had appeared in an Instagram post with a man appearing to hold a handgun — and the candidate had said in another post that she supported her husband.
“You’ve got me … I haven’t heard about (it), I’ ll have to look it up, I have no idea what the wife of somebody running for us — or the husband — said about the wife,” said the New Democratic Party leader, clearly confused.
“Look, sorry Laurie, I hate to say it, but I’ve learned in my 35 years of experience to admit I have no idea what you’re referring to.”
The candidate in question is Katherine Swampy, the NDP candidate for Battle River-Crowfoot, a new riding made up of some of the most Conservative territory in all of Canada.
In a photo dug up by conservative blogger Dean Skoreyko, Swampy’s husband is posing — arms folded — among a group of men. One of them, in hip-hop album cover fashion, is pointing what appears to be a handgun at the camera.
Skoreyko also found a Facebook post from 2011 written by Swampy, “ur f--king with the wrong chicka bitch u best do urself a favour and f--k off b4 i do something.”
It’s understandable that Mulcair wasn’t intimately familiar with the social media history of a long-shot candidate.
However, Friday morning in Edmonton, he endured what has become a common question to party leaders during the 2015 election: “One of your faint-hope candidates did something questionable on the Internet a while ago, and will you make them apologize/resign?”
Later on Friday, an NDP spokesman said the gun is “clearly a toy” — and indeed, the white barrel seems to indicate it was a replica or airsoft pistol.
Swampy, f or her part, hinted in a Facebook post her spouse’s unorthodox appearance is owed more to his position as a contractor/tattoo artist, and called him a “supportive husband.”
“In addition, in a past heated exchange on my Facebook page, profanity was used,” she wrote.
“I apologize for this language and to anyone who may have been offended.”