Categories: In the News

“My party’s leader came to talk about tax cuts, but all I got was this embarrassing photo”

One job I’d hate to have right now: the PR wonk for the Conservative party who has to spin the photo below:


  It’s as if Quentin Tarantino directed “Grumpy Old Men”! “Uh…we’re great! Um…and..we’re straight! And…uh…ah, screw it, rhyming slogans are for homos…” ** POW **

It appears on the front page of today’s National Post and shows an unidentified (and unbalanced) Conservative supporter punching Bob Smyth, an activist from Canadians for Equal Marriage. Apparently Smyth was heckling Conservative party leader Stephen Harper during a speech and the supporter decided some smiting was in order.

The Toronto Star reports:

As
Laurie Arron, 41, and Bob Smyth, 58, heckled the Tory leader during his
speech, an unidentified senior citizen punched Smyth and attempted to
hit him with a small wooden signpost.
Police ejected both Arron
and Smyth and Harper said afterward that he regretted the tussle and
wished that people would “treat each other respectfully.”

Strangely enough, there’s no mention of the police ejecting the guy who actually threw the punch. Good call, jackasses.

Joey deVilla

View Comments

  • I'm glad you mentioned this. I saw in on the news last night and thought it looked pretty rotten. Where does "questioning" stop, and "heckling" begin? It looked to me like it was on the "questioning" side of the line.
    Dave Edwards

  • It's just not a great election for civil discourse. Four Liberal candidates (Glen Murray in Manitoba, Jacques Saada in Quebec, and Lorne Mayencourt and Hedy Fry in British Columbia) had their offices vandalized.
    The worst thing will be that incidents like these might cause some people to reconsider their votes. There are plenty of great reasons to vote for Paul Martin or Stephen Harper without "Conservatives? They're the ones who beat up senior citizens" and "If we don't vote Liberal the terrorists win" (heh).
    I'm being a jerk by saying this -- "I'm smart enough to know better, but the rabble can't be trusted" -- but I'd prefer to not even have to worry about it, because things like this Just. Don't. Happen.
    One thing I do know is that the Florida recount mobs no longer seem quite so funny, or quite so foreign.

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