Winnipeg New Democrat’s Liberal rival sends most sarcastic news release ever

New Democrat Pat Martin is no shrinking violet.

The six-time MP may be best known to those outside his Winnipeg Centre riding for his colourful turns of phrase and his profanity-laced Twitter rants.

But Martin may have met his match in his Liberal rival for the riding, who has issued a sarcasm-soaked missive dripping with disdain.

According to Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Martin “expressed concerns” to him that voters in the riding are being told that Martin no longer lives in Winnipeg but, rather, on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia.

“Mr. Martin has publicly stated that he will sue for libel anyone who suggests that he lives on Salt Spring Island. As Mr. Martin told The Winnipeg Free Press, ‘I know a thing or two about libel.’ We defer to his expertise in this area,” says Ouellette’s statement, posted on his campaign website, on Twitter and on his Facebook page.

“Therefore, we wish to make it absolutely clear that the official position of Robert-Falcon Ouellette and his campaign for Liberal MP in Winnipeg Centre, in public and in private, is that Pat Martin does not live on Salt Spring Island.”

It goes on to cite several sources, including the acknowledgements in former NDP leader Jack Layton’s book and island NDP organizations that publicly refer to him as Salt Spring’s “unofficial” MP.

“But Pat Martin does not live on Salt Spring Island,” Ouellette repeats again and again.

The allegation has dogged Martin since at least 2007.

The NDP MP did not immediately respond to a request for comment but he addressed the allegation in a letter to The Winnipeg Sun eight years ago.

“I was born and raised in Winnipeg but my wife Barbara and her whole family are from Vancouver,” he writes.

In 2001, he and his wife bought a hobby farm on the island off the B.C. coast.

“Most years I try to spend two or three weeks there in the summer and a week or so at Christmas,” Martin writes.

“We have always gone out to B.C. for Christmas because I have no living family in Winnipeg anymore and Barbara has her mom, brothers, sister and their families.”

Martin provided his address, saying he comes home to the Manitoba capital every weekend.

“Only failed Liberal candidates have ever tried to suggest I live in B.C.,” he wrote.

“It’s not a crime to have an investment, recreation, or retirement property.”

During a debate Wednesday night, Green Party candidate Don Woodstock claimed he is the only candidate that will actually cast a ballot in the Winnipeg Centre riding. Neither Martin nor Ouellette immediately responded to a request to comment.

Earlier this year Martin got some laughs after a Conservative MP complained that he’d left his seat in the House of Commons during a vote count.

The former union leader told the deputy speaker he had to leave because his underwear were too tight.

“I can blame it on a sale that was down at the Hudson’s Bay [Company] – they had men’s underwear on for half price. I bought a bunch that was clearly too small for me and I find it difficult to sit for any length of time,“ he said at the time.

He later said it was a cheeky response to a cheeky complaint.

Almost three years ago, Martin quit Twitter following one-too-many profanity-laced tirades, the last of which referred to the Conservative party as “rat-faced whores.”

Martin apologized.

“It seems some people shouldn’t tweet so with this, I sign off,” he wrote before his account shut down.