Vaughan Liberal incumbent issues Twitter apology to Tim Hudak

YorkRegion.ca
June 11, 2014
Adam Martin-Robbins

Vaughan Liberal candidate Steven Del Duca has apologized after the Tories complained about a flyer put out by his campaign team.

The flyer depicts Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak laughing as he walks away from an exploding hospital.

“This is beneath them,” deputy Conservative leader Christine Elliott said at Queen’s Park Wednesday morning as campaign teams began their final push to reach voters before Thursday’s election.

“It’s actually quite sickening somebody would actually put something like that out to the public. It’s fear-mongering at its worst.”

Ian Robertson, Hudak’s campaign manager, demanded an apology from Premier Kathleen Wynne and Del Duca, as well as from campaign co-chairs David Herle and Deb Matthews in a letter sent Tuesday.

Del Duca did just that on Twitter early Wednesday morning.

He said in a tweet to Hudak: “Please accept my apology. The flyer was a mistake for which I am sorry.”

The flyer shows Hudak, head tilted back and laughing above the caption: “Do you TRUST Tim Hudak and the Ontario PCs with your future?”

It’s a parody of the scene with the Joker in the Dark Knight movie.

The flyer highlights Conservative promises such as cutting 100,000 public sector jobs and says Hudak voted against the Vaughan hospital and the Hwy. 427 extension.

At the bottom, it says “only Steven Del Duca and the Ontario Liberals will keep delivering positive results for Vaughan.”

An advertisement with the same image and similar statements ran in The Vaughan Citizen two weeks ago.

Del Duca said in an interview the flyer was “produced locally” and was delivered to a “small number of houses in the riding".

“I had an opportunity to take a look at the whole thing, in the light of the day, and I do regret proceeding with that particular flyer,” he said. “I thought it was important to put that apology out to Tim Hudak on Twitter this morning to make sure it was clear that I did regret it, that it was a mistake.”

Del Duca said he wasn’t pressured by higher-ups in the Liberal party to apologize.

Premier Wynne said while visiting a school in the Toronto-Danforth riding, she hadn’t seen the flyer, but added “this kind of campaigning is not acceptable".

Local PC candidate Peter Meffe called the flyer "deeply disturbing and distasteful to the victims of terrorism and violence".

“This distasteful display further demonstrates that Kathleen Wynne’s party will do anything to distract from her record of inaction when it comes to delivering Vaughan’s long-awaited and much promised hospital," he said in an email.

The hospital has been a central issue here during this election, just as it was in the 2011 general election and the 2012 byelection that saw Del Duca swept into office.

The Liberals have claimed that the PCs would scrap the Vaughan hospital, expected to cost more than $1 billion, despite Hudak’s promises to the contrary.

The Tories, meanwhile, claim the Grits aren’t really committed to building a hospital here, saying that three successive Liberal health ministers have made announcements “approving” a hospital for Vaughan since 2007, but construction hasn’t started.

The Vaughan Health Campus of Care (VHCC) — once heavily involved with efforts to bring a hospital to the city, before being squeezed out — has also been waging an advertising campaign attacking the Liberals.

The VHCC has put out a series of ads — online, in local newspapers and on billboards around the city — highlighting the gas plant, Ornge air ambulance and eHealth scandals that have dogged the Liberals.

And some of those ads accuse the Grits of making empty promises about delivering a hospital to Vaughan.

Influential local real estate developer Michael De Gasperis heads up the non-profit organization, while Vaughan PC candidate Meffe is a former VHCC employee, having served as its vice-president of planning. He was hired shortly after losing his council seat in the 2010 municipal election.

Mackenzie Health, the hospital corporation charged with overseeing construction and operation of the facility, says the project is on track with construction slated to begin in 2015 and the doors opening by 2019. 

—With files by Torstar News Network