Disparaging Twitter comments lead to resignation of Southdale Liberal candidate

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This article was published 03/03/2016 (3845 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Liberal Leader Rana Bokhari says she is “disgusted” by sexist and misogynistic social media comments made by one of her candidates and admits the party’s vetting system broke down.

More than 24 hours after it came to light that Southdale candidate Jamie Hall had referred to women as “whores” and “skanks” in online postings, Bokhari faced the public for the first time Thursday afternoon.

“The comments were disgusting. That’s not who we are as a party. That’s not who I am as a person, as a woman. You can image that I feel sick to my stomach right now even just standing here,” she told reporters at the Legislative Building.

Earlier in the day, she released a brief statement to say that Hall had resigned and she had accepted his resignation.

Facing the media, Bokhari did not explain why she took more than a day to distance herself from her candidate and his online remarks.

She said she spent the time examining the party’s vetting system, but she was never in doubt that Hall had to go.

“He would have been removed for sure. That wasn’t the issue. The issue at play was not whether or not we were going to remove him. The issue was me looking through our own vetting system to see what actually happened there,” she said.

Bokhari said she still hasn’t got to the bottom of what went wrong. A quick Google search of Hall would have immediately raised red flags, but he was still given the all-clear by the Liberals’ ‘green light’ vetting committee.

So what happened?

“I wish I could say,” Bokhari said. “We’ve retraced the steps. I don’t want to be the leader who doesn’t take responsibility. I have to take full responsibility for that misstep. And it was a massive misstep.”

“We’re doing everything we can to go back, retrace those steps to see where the gap was and trying our best to move forward and make sure that this does not happen again.”

Bokhari said a committee of three people sit on the vetting committee at any one time. Social media use is one of the considerations in the vetting process, she said.

Hall, a businessman and technology expert, had also been doing website development work for the Liberal party. Bokhari said he’s not involved any longer.

“We’re making sure that he is absolutely severed from the organization,” she said.

Bokhari’s communications director, Mike Brown, cut the press conference off after just seven minutes, but not before Bokhari took a veiled swipe at NDP Fort Rouge candidate Wab Kinew, who has also used offensive language in the past as a hip-hop artist.

Bokhari said while the Liberals are taking action on Hall’s offensive comments, “I don’t see the other parties doing the same thing.”

The NDP has defended Kinew for the past two days, saying he has sincerely apologized for his onetime use of derogatory rap lyrics, and that he has turned his life around.

In an interview Thursday, Kinew admitted, for instance, to using the derogatory term “fag” in a song.

“I am not making any excuses, I used some terrible language and I know it was wrong and I am apologizing for it and taking ownership for it,” he said from Toronto.

“Homophobic language, I really regret that and I apologize for that … I am working to be a good ally to the LGBTQ and two-spirited communities, so I guess the first step is to apologize, both for song lyrics but even, if I have ever made comments in conversation, there is no place for that.”

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Kinew said he doesn’t believe he should resign as the NDP’s candidate in Fort Rouge, noting in recent years he has undergone a “very intense transformation.”

Meanwhile, Hall declined an interview Thursday, but he did write a blog about the events of the past two days.

“People want their politicians to be perfect. People talk like me, but they’re not running for office, so I get the scrutiny,” he said in the Thursday posting. “However, I was running because I have something to contribute to government. I truly believe that, and so too, did a lot of people.”

Hall thanked his friends and backers, saying: “You are the people that know me, and that’s why you know, that I am neither sexist or evil. I’m just a guy that loves politics that speaks in a way that some people don’t like. That’s too bad. I would have turned the Leg (legislature) on its ear,” he wrote.

— with files from Kristin Annable