{"id":179481,"date":"2018-08-31T22:15:21","date_gmt":"2018-09-01T02:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=179481"},"modified":"2018-08-31T22:15:21","modified_gmt":"2018-09-01T02:15:21","slug":"tweet-former-teachers-hotness-leads-heat-manitoba-politician","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/31\/tweet-former-teachers-hotness-leads-heat-manitoba-politician\/","title":{"rendered":"Tweet about former teacher’s ‘hotness’ leads to heat for Manitoba politician"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The tweet says: \u201cYou were always the hottest teacher. All the boys loved you in inappropriate ways.\u201d (File Photo<\/a>: Steven Fletcher\/Twitter<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WINNIPEG \u2014 A\u00a0Manitoba\u00a0politician is facing some heat after tweeting about the \u201chotness\u201d of his former homeroom teacher.<\/p>\n

Steven Fletcher, an Independent member of the legislature, posted a message on Twitter in reply to a woman who taught him in Grades 7 and 8.<\/p>\n

The message thanks her for commenting on an article Fletcher had published and also revealed that he was attracted to her 35 years ago.<\/p>\n

The tweet says: \u201cYou were always the hottest teacher. All the boys loved you in inappropriate ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many people \u2014 including Rochelle Squires,\u00a0Manitoba’s minister for the status of women \u2014 have replied, telling Fletcher his remarks were inappropriate and offensive.<\/p>\n

Fletcher says he meant no offence \u2014 many boys have crushes on their teachers \u2014 and people are reacting too harshly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like we’re living in a society where it is becoming increasingly difficult to be human,\u201d Fletcher said Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I had a crush on my Grade 7 teacher, and, yes, she was photogenic and very smart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Squires tweeted that she was at a loss for words.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t even know what to say \u2014 so, so insulting, demeaning, inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fletcher served as a minister of state in former prime minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet between 2008 and 2013 before being shuffled out.<\/p>\n

In 2016, Fletcher ran for the\u00a0Manitoba\u00a0Tories after losing his federal seat and won. But a year later he was booted out of that caucus for publicly breaking with the party on a number of policies.<\/p>\n

He stood by his tweet Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re not bad words. They’re not profanity or anything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would hazard a guess that virtually every single person who has made a comment on this has used the word ‘hottest’ in describing someone sometime in their life.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WINNIPEG \u2014 A\u00a0Manitoba\u00a0politician is facing some heat after tweeting about the \u201chotness\u201d of his former homeroom teacher. Steven Fletcher, an …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":179482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-steve-lambert","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}