The P.E.I. politician who was booed at a protest against a Trans-Canada Highway project has received two apologies from people who were in the crowd.
During the demonstration, MLAs were given small hemlock trees, symbolic of hemlocks estimated to be 200 years old that will have to be cut down to make room for the highway. Liberal MLA Bush Dumville told the crowd he would dedicate his tree to his daughter, who flipped her car on the section of highway that is now being realigned. He said if there had been oncoming traffic she could have died.
People started booing him, saying the project was not about safety, and a protester stepped forward and took the hemlock from him.
Jennifer Ridgway and her husband Brian Willis were in the crowd that day, and have written him a letter of apology.
"It just seemed like a little bit of a group mentality took over and some booing and that kind of thing happened, and it felt to me that we weren't really practicing what we preach, which is to listen to people and to hear what they say," said Ridgway.
"Agree or disagree, it is always good to respect people when they try to speak, and it didn't really strike me until later really that that was something that really hadn't happened in that moment. And it kind of bothered me."
Ridgway said while she didn't agree with Dumville's comments he is entitled to free speech and respect.
She received an email back from Dumville within a half hour thanking her for the apology.