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NDP drops Saskatoon candidate over social media posts

Mar 10, 2016 | 6:00 PM

Clayton Wilson is no longer the NDP’s candidate for Saskatoon Northwest in the 2016 provincial election.
 
Wilson found himself the focus of attacks from the Saskatchewan Party over a series of Facebook comments he made two years ago. Screen captures of the comments were posted by Sask. Party leader Brad Wall. They showed Wilson referring to ‘stupid farmers’ in a discussion relating the dissolution of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) to the 2014 rail backlog that saw billions of dollars’ worth of farmers’ grain unable to get to market.
 
Just a day after Wilson apologized for those comments, Saskatchewan Party officials circulated another round of images to media outlets.
 
Screen captures of three posts, two from 2011 and one from 2013, all saw Wilson appearing to make derogatory remarks about women. One post was a meme with the text: “A true gentleman holds the door for his woman, then he smacks her ass.”
 
In a statement, NDP leader Cam Broten said he’d reviewed the posts and had removed Wilson as a candidate.

“The Internet is certainly full of bad and inappropriate jokes and no one wants a campaign where every old retweet or Facebook post is dragged out in “gotcha” politics, but violence against women is a serious issue and comments which take sexual harassment lightly are below the standard we should all expect from our elected representatives,” wrote Broten.

The NDP has indicated they will find a new candidate in the riding.

 

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