A Liberal MP apologized for spreading blatant misinformation on the planned Canada Day protests in Ottawa and has since deleted his inaccurate Twitter post.
Mark Gerretsen, MP for Kingston and the Islands, admits that he spread misinformation about his political rival Pierre Poilievre. In a tweet posted Sunday morning, Gerretsen confessed that he “doesn’t need to be spreading misinformation.”
In the now deleted tweet, Gerretsen accused Poilievre’s base of being against abortion. It appears Gerretsen didn’t fact-check the tweet before sharing, because if he did, he would know the account is not “genuine.”
Gerretsen then added that there’s “plenty of real info that is equally alarming.” It is not clear what info he is referring to. This is not the first time Liberals have resorted to spreading lies about their political opponents.
It is not clear who the Canada Day Convoy account belongs to. Many have speculated Rebel News has something to do with it, pointing to the fact donation links and Rebel News articles are featured prominently on the page.
However, there is no evidence that Rebel News is involved. Others have speculated that the account is run by operatives in the United States, or even Russia. These claims lack sufficient evidence.
Despite the fact the account appears to be inauthentic, multiple media outlets have reported on it as if it were genuine. Global News ran a story citing the page, as did the Western Standard.
Canada Day will feature protests and events organized by people that participated in the original Freedom Convoy. However, organizers have publicly denied that another convoy is coming for Canada Day.
A leaked intelligence report indicates that the protest is expected to be peaceful, despite claims from Twitter trolls that activists are planning an “insurrection.”
Earlier this week, over a dozen MPs met with anti-mandate advocate James Topp in Parliament Hill, listening to his concerns. This move was slammed by critics including lawyer Warren Kinsella, currently a columnist for the Toronto Sun.
“The Conservatives were damn fools to meet with [anti-mandate activists]. And the MPs, and their party, are going to pay a deep price for it.”
Looking into the account, @CanDayConvoy, it appears to be connected to those who either participated or are in line with the Trucker’s Freedom Convoy last February.
There is some seriously inflammatory rhetoric on their Feed, That makes me think they are either illegitimate, or stupid.
As for the meeting between some in this movement and Conservative MP’s, the optics are obviously bad and easily exploitable by their political opposition.
However, many or most of the CPC Leadership candidates, particularly Leslyn Lewis, openly share their statements and objectives. It seems the CPC is more afraid of losing their base to Bernier and the PPC than they are to middle of the road Centrists going over to the LPC or NDP (which are the same thing now).
All in all, the CPC leadership, incl. Bergen, are miscalculating, and the Convoy group (by whatever name) are much less relevant than they were back in the late Winter months when we actually were under travel restriction mandates for the unvaccinated. I don’t see that they’ll get much support except from the fringe of right-wing radical outliers.
p.s. I am a paid member of the Conservative Party and intend to vote for Jean Charest as he is the only candidate who is even remotely electable on a National level (to centrist voters: the majority? Hopefully.)