Sarnia Lambton Conservative Candidate Marilyn Gladu says she won’t comment on what see calls “nasty personal attack ads” in internet report.
PressProgress, an arm of the Broadbent Institute set up by former NDP Leader Ed Broadbent – combed through Gladu’s Twitter and Facebook feeds.
The report shows Facebook Feeds calling for Canada to return to its “strong foundation of Christianity” on a Canada Day Post.
Another posting shares a video of an American woman dressing down some one billed as a Muslim extremist. Gladu’s post says: “People came to the country with certain values and now they want to kill everyone else.”
It also pointed out Twitter exchanges with Multiculturalism and Defence Minister Jason Kenney in 2014 about the government’s court action to have a woman take off her niquab while becoming a Canadian Citizen.
“I believe people taking the public Oath of Citizenship should do so w/ their faces uncovered. Do you agree?” Kenney tweeted in Oct. 17. “Agreed,” replied Gladu Oct. 25 “or they should pick a different country.”
When reached by The Independent Monday, Gladu refused to speak specifically about the Facebook posts and Tweets calling them “nasty personal attack ads.”
“I don’t know much about them..I’m just ignoring them. They’re untrue I’m focusing on my campaign,” she told The Independent.
When asked if she had posted the items on Facebook and Twitter she replied: “I’m not going to give credence to any of the specific things (other) than to say I’ve always been about freedom of religion for everyone, whether they’re people of faith or people of no faith …I’ve always been about inclusion and multiculturalism and people locally know that about me. The accusation there are untrue and I’m not going to give them any credit by speaking to them.”
When asked if her Facebook page or Twitter feed had been hacked by someone else trying to damage to her campaign, she responded: “I’m not going to comment on any of those things. It just hypes the media up. These are nasty personal attack ads against me.”
And she would not confirm or deny the screen grabs came from her social media accounts.
“I’m not going to comment on it, honestly I’m not…The accusations made against me are libellous and untrue and I’m not going to comment on them…People can look at it if they want to look at it. I’m just saying theses are nasty attack ads the exact thing that turns people off politics and I’m not going to give them any credit by commenting on them.”
The Facebook and Twitter post can no longer be seen. Gladu’s Twitter feed, which as of Tuesday had 141 followers, no longer had posts in the timeframe of Oct. 20 to Nov. 8, 2014 when Gladu’s tweets on the niquab were posted.
It’s not clear whether they had been removed from the Multiculturalism Minister’s Twitter feed; Kenney is prolific tweeter and only a half dozen months of his feed is available to be viewed by the public.
So far 11 candidates have been forced to resign from the 78-day race because of things said on social media. Most recently a Liberal MP from BC resigned after social media posts surfaced from her saying the 9-11 attacks to be “the lie.”
If a candidate leaves the race now, they cannot be replaced.
Gladu says she is not going to let the report tarnish her run to win the seat back for the Conservatives over the NDP’s Jason McMichael, the Liberal’s David McPhail and the Green Party’s Peter Smith. “I’m going to focus on my campaign, door-to-door, (there is) lots of positivity.”