Calgary-Foothills byelection heats up with war of words
The war of words is ramping up in the homestretch of the Calgary-Foothills byelection, with the NDP's Bob Hawkesworth calling out his Wildrose competitor for what he says is a disrespectful Chinese-language flyer.
"All I can say is I find it deeply disappointing that this should be the way that others are conducting their campaign," said Hawkesworth.
The flyer in question either labels Hawkesworth a communist or talks about the socialist philosophies of the NDP, depending on translation. Hawkesworth bristles at what he considers a personal attack.
"After 30 years in public life as a city councillor and as an MLA, this is not a true or accurate description and people have a track record of my work in this community that they can compare that to."
He's also upset the Wildrose appears to be saying something in Chinese that it wouldn't say in English, something he says disrespects the Chinese community.
Hugo Chavez
Prassad Panda, the Wildrose hopeful for Jim Prentice's former seat, says it's a matter of improper translation and that he never called Hawkesworth a communist, before launching an attack on the socialist ideology of the NDP.
"Many of their MLAs, they call themselves socialists," he said. "They spoke in admiration of socialist dictator, Mr. Chavez Hugo [sic] and he's a self-described Marxist. And one of the NDP MLAs who was a former leadership candidate, he praised Chavez and the NDP didn't condemn that."
Panda is referring to Edmonton-Ellerslie MLA Rod Loyola, who placed third in the leadership contest won by Rachel Notley in 2014. Loyola has expressed admiration for the late Venezuelan dictator.
When pressed on whether he thinks Hawkesworth could be described as a communist, he said "we have to go back and ask them why they didn't condemn when their MLA openly says he's a Marxist," before saying he doesn't think he is a communist.
Polls on September 3
Hawkesworth says he's never seen this kind of campaign tactic during his political career and laments the descent into what he says is a personal attack.
Panda, meanwhile accuses Hawkesworth of diverting attention from the real issues of the campaign.
Voters in Calgary-Foothills will go to the polls for the third time in less than a year on September 3.
The other candidates are Janet Keeping for the Greens, Blair Houston for the PCs, Mark Taylor for the Alberta Party and Ali Bin Zahid for the Liberals.
Correction : An earlier version of this story identified the pamphlet as being in Cantonese. This mistake has been corrected.(Aug 30, 2015 10:08 PM)
