Ontario Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath apologized to Premier Doug Ford on Wednesday, after it emerged she and Sudbury MPP Jamie West posed for a picture this week featuring a sign with vulgar things to say about the Tory leader.
The photo was taken Tuesday at a rally at Queen's Park opposing the government's plans for health care. The main sign read “Ontario's new logo,” with an image of a pair of scissors. However, it is the hashtag below that is stirring controversy.
Horwath apologized to the premier in person Wednesday in the Ontario legislature, and she later told reporters that he accepted her apology.
Horwath said she didn't read the message on the bottom of the sign before agreeing to pose for the photo.
An email from NDP spokesperson Robin Nieto said West also didn't notice the offending phrase.
“Basically, Jamie and Andrea didn’t notice that part of the sign,” Nieto said in the email. “Andrea apologized to the premier in person, and he accepted the apology. That was it.”
The rhetoric has been heated at Queen's Park for several years and has intensified since Ford's Progressive Conservatives were elected last June.
In addition to addressing the small controversy, Nieto pointed to statements West made in the legislature opposing layoffs of the province's school teachers, including 51 at the Rainbow District School Board who received redundancy notices last Friday.
“While in past years, there was a chance these educators would be reassigned, this government’s cuts to education makes the threat of job losses very real,” said West. “These teachers are not resigning or retiring. They can be out of a job as a direct result of the Ford Conservative’s cuts to our education system.
“What does this government have to say to the hard-working educators in Sudbury worried that they will lose their jobs, and the children that will lose their teachers and suffer larger class sizes, cancelled courses and fewer opportunities?”
