Former prime minister trades barbs with former Peterborough MP online
Del Mastro upset with Campbell’s profanity to describe Trump
After former Progressive Conservative prime minister Kim Campbell referred to U.S. President Donald Trump with a profanity in a tweet over the weekend, former Peterborough Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro called it “unacceptable” on social media — and drew the ire of Campbell herself.
Campbell was responding to a Trump tweet about building a border wall. Campbell — who was in office from June to October 1993 — tweeted on Saturday that Trump “really IS a mother—r!”
Campbell’s tweet was repeating language used by Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib during an event on Thursday.
Trump called Tlaib’s language disgraceful and disrespectful, while Tlaib didn’t back down; she tweeted, “I will always speak truth to power.”
Campbell’s tweet, meanwhile, had more than 2,000 retweets before it was deleted on Sunday.
CBC picked up on Campbell’s tweet with a story on Sunday that quoted from Del Mastro’s Facebook page, where the former Conservative MP and ethics watchdog for former prime minister Stephen Harper denounced Campbell’s use of profanity.
Del Mastro stepped down in November 2014 after he was found guilty in court of having overspent on his election campaign in 2008 and of taking steps to cover it up.
He was sentenced to a month in jail and four months of house arrest. Del Mastro appealed twice and lost both times, and his application to be heard at the Supreme Court of Canada was turned down.
He ended up serving 17 days of his 30-day sentence in jail.
On Facebook, Del Mastro wrote that Campbell embarrassed both herself and her country.
“There is no excusing what Kim Campbell said — she needs to apologize to Canadians and Americans alike and do so formally to the U.S. President in writing,” Del Mastro wrote.
Newsweek then wrote a story and posted it online Monday morning; it also quoted from Del Mastro’s Facebook page. Campbell wasn’t impressed.
“Honestly @Newsweek, couldn’t you have found someone who had not been convicted of electoral fraud as your arbiter of good taste?” she tweeted on Monday.
Del Mastro had quite a bit to say about Campbell, meanwhile.
“She may disagree with Donald Trump’s efforts to grow the U.S. economy, withdraw from permanent wars and secure the U.S. southern border which is open to debate but doesn’t call for vulgarity particularly from Canada’s only female PM,” he wrote.