{"id":71814,"date":"2016-03-04T00:28:44","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T05:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=71814"},"modified":"2016-03-04T00:28:44","modified_gmt":"2016-03-04T05:28:44","slug":"manitoba-liberal-candidate-resigns-over-derogatory-tweets-about-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/03\/04\/manitoba-liberal-candidate-resigns-over-derogatory-tweets-about-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Manitoba Liberal candidate resigns over derogatory tweets about women"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jamie<\/a>
Jamie Hall (in photo), a Manitoba Liberal candidate, resigns over derogatory tweets about women. (Photo from Manitoba Liberals’ website<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WINNIPEG\u2014A Manitoba Liberal candidate who used derogatory terms to refer to women on social media was denounced by the party’s leader after resigning Thursday.<\/p>\n

Jamie Hall was nominated as a Winnipeg-area candidate Tuesday night. Less than 24 hours later, the NDP demanded his resignation after unearthing dozens of tweets over the years in which Hall used terms such as \u201cwhore\u201d and \u201cskank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hall initially apologized but also defended his comments by calling them humorous and satirical.<\/p>\n

Liberal Leader Rana Bokhari didn’t weigh in until Thursday, issuing a statement saying she had accepted Hall’s resignation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe comments were disgusting,\u201d she told reporters later in the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s not who we are as a party. That’s not who I am as a person. As a woman, you can imagine I feel sick to my stomach right now even just standing here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Liberal party issued a statement Thursday night saying it had severed its business relationship with Hall and \u201call social media services have now been transitioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hall wrote about the resignation on his blog Thursday. He said his tweets were taken out of context, so he would not be running.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause all the positive posts I’ve made don’t count, and my actions (working with women, having great relationships with women, etc.) are seen as less of a true window into my soul,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want their politicians to be perfect. People talk like me, but they’re not running for office, so I get the scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hall’s tweets, dating back several years, repeatedly referred to women in derogatory terms. In one tweet, Hall asked whether a whore can truly be a whore if no one hears her scream. In his blog post, Hall said it was an excerpt from his self-published novel, although the book is not referenced.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis does not reflect my personal views on women at all,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Another said: \u201cYou can put glasses on a whore but you can’t put a whore on glasses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still another said: \u201cI am prejudicial against women politicians\u201d in reference to former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Republican politician Michele Bachmann.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis whole tweet is strange,\u201d Hall wrote on his blog. \u201cI was running in a party with a female leader, and she’s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bokhari said Hall was vetted before being named a candidate but his tweets weren’t seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, something happened and something was missed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re doing everything we can to go back and retrace those steps to see where the gap was and trying our best to move forward and make sure that this doesn’t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health Minister Sharon Blady, speaking on behalf of the NDP, said Bokhari’s silence for a day after the tweets came to light did not send a strong enough signal that sexism isn’t tolerated.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou would hope from a leader that there would be clear, decisive action,\u201d Blady said. \u201cI would have preferred to see a leader intervene and ask for the resignation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blady continued to defend NDP candidate Wab Kinew, who is running against Bokhari in a Winnipeg riding and who was criticized by Hall for using similar misogynist language during his career as a rapper. In one song, Kinew raps about hitting women in the face with both a fist and his genitalia.<\/p>\n

Kinew has since apologized for his lyrics, both at a music awards ceremony and in his 2015 book \u201cThe Reason You Walk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time I thought it was funny or had shock value,\u201d Kinew wrote. \u201cWith the epidemic of violence against women, and indigenous women in particular, there is no excuse for this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Liberals have one seat in the legislature going into the April 19 election. Polls show they are in a dead heat with the governing NDP at around 20 per cent support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WINNIPEG\u2014A Manitoba Liberal candidate who used derogatory terms to refer to women on social media was denounced by the party’s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":71815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16,483],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-71814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","category-politics","tag-original","mauthors-chinta-puxley","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71814","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}