Mayoral candidate Will Boissoin has come clean and admitted that he made the comment on his Facebook account that was highly disparaging of the North Bay Police Service.
"Isn’t every cop a slice of bacon! Oink oink," he wrote.
Referring to the list of endorsed candidates issued by the Police Association he wrote, "I bet I am not on that list since I want RCMP and OPP pricing. They must be worried they will not be allowed to drive drug dealers to sales and drive drunk on our streets anymore."
Boissoin threatened BayToday with a "massive lawsuit' when the story originally ran, suggesting it was a fake account set up by a mayoral rival.
See: Mayoral candidate makes controversial 'bacon' comment about local police (UPDATED)
He told CTV reporter Brittany Bortolon on camera yesterday, "I’ve finally learnt what private conversation on a public Facebook page means, and you know I’ll stick behind my words, and that I grew up saying that term (for police) and you know, you have to have a back bone. If you can’t take an extra name, maybe you know, that’s not the career for you."
He also told CKAT News Director Richard Coffin on yesterday's mayoral debate, "I was recently on a public media forum and found out what that can do and you live and you learn. I'll stick behind my words."
Chief Shawn Devine's comment to the original story was simply "Wow."
Police Association President Aaron Northrup responded by saying, "Well Mr. Boissoin, I, of course, am not pleased with these statements, yet I will actually defend you to some degree. CANADA is the greatest country in the world, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees this. Thousands of people each year flee war-ravaged lands, risking their lives and those of their families to get to Canada so they then can have an opportunity to express themselves freely.“
Council candidate Neal McNamara, a former police officer weighed in.
"You know, we expect a lot from our candidates for public office," says McNamara. "When you run, you need to be a role model and you need to have integrity, and when you make comments like that and then deny making them, well that tells us a lot about a person. The only thing I want to say to our 'red bull ambassador' is, ‘Will, I am very disappointed in you.'"
