Twitter Insult Leads to Parliamentary Apology

A Canadian politician found herself in hot water this week, when she used Twitter to imply that an opposing parliamentarian was fat. Michelle Simson, a Liberal Party MP from the Toronto-area riding of Scarborough Southwest, happened to be at the Canadian parliament’s ethics committee meeting, across the table from her Conservative Party counterpart, Dean Del Mastro, another MP from Ontario. During the lengthy meeting, Simson decided to use Twitter and send tweets to her 443 followers, and she chose to target the opposing MP. Simson wrote that Del Mastro “should grow up, not out,” an obvious reference to the fact that the Conservative politician is overweight. Simson then returned to Twitter shortly after her initial post, noting that she “hates to see a grown MP pout.”

Simson, however, got an earful later that day in the House of Commons, showing just how quickly tweets make the rounds, even at the highest levels of power. Del Mastro stood up in Parliament, read the exact tweet using his Blackberry and indicated that he has been batting weight-related issues since birth. Del Mastro then went on to demand an apology from the Liberal opposition politician, noting that her reference to his weight was discriminatory and insulting to millions of Canadians with the same problem.

Simson did, in fact, issue an apology for her controversial Twitter activities, but at least one live blogger who had attended the ethics committee meeting for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) noted that Del Mastro had not shied away either from overtly partisan behaviour and disparaging remarks aimed at