Tantramar mayoral candidate Bonnie Swift has responded to criticism after a slew of controversial posts disappeared from her public Twitter account.
Listen to the report that aired on CHMA’s Tantramar Report on Thursday, November 24, 2002.
The social media posts suggested her politics are heavily influenced by the far-right on issues such as anti-racism, abortion and health-care privatization.
When local residents and journalists raised questions about her stated views this week, hundreds of tweets suddenly vanished. The first-time politician had previously campaigned on transparency in local government.
Swift says her tweets are being taken out of context, and that her husband deactivated the account without her knowledge because of online harassment.
Reached by phone on Wednesday, Swift told CHMA she “could care less” if residents decided not to vote for her over the deleted tweets.
“I’m not desperate to win this race… I’d be happy just leaving it, not talking to anybody,” she said. She added that she stands by a statement issued to local reporter Bruce Wark, who first reported about the missing tweets.
CHMA collected screengrabs of her Twitter feed before they disappeared. Some of her controversial takes included commentary on reproductive rights.
When one media organization reported that the U.S. Supreme Court was set to overturn Roe. v Wade, striking down abortion rights, she responded: ‘LOL.’
In another tweet she said: “If abortions [are] illegal it does not impact me in anyway…. I just don’t care…. It’s not the 1950s use birth control, tons of options.”
In another tweet, Swift stated that she supports calls from Tory leader Pierre Poilievre for the federal government to “defund the CBC.”
It’s a talking point commonly found in the far-right Canadian tweetosphere through websites and social media outfits like Canada Proud and Rebel News.
In response to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ calls for publicly-funded health care in the United States, Swift stated: “You can have Canada’s socialist health care system it’s useless. Had to go to the US for care due to wait times here.”
In an exchange with another Twitter user, Swift, a self-described millionaire, said increased health-care privatization “can’t happen soon enough.”
She frequently weighed in on political debates south of the border, often trolling liberal or left-leaning politicians and pushing back against criticism of wealth inequality.
When Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren criticized the purchase of Twitter by billionaire Elon Musk and called for a “wealth tax and strong rules to hold Big Tech accountable,” Swift replied: “We need you to shut up… that’s what we need.”
Themes in the tweets reviewed by CHMA included her enthusiastic support for Elon Musk — often saying he should “buy Canada” — matched by an intense loathing of Justin Trudeau.
Anti-racist movements and organizations such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa were also frequent targets of Swift, who spoke out in defence of “white, wealthy men.”
She made that comment in response to Laurie Penny, a journalist reflecting on the experiences of writers “who aren’t straight, white, wealthy men.”
Penny said she had spent “her whole career being trolled, threatened, flamed, defamed, iced out and lied about.”
Swift responded: “I really think most people don’t care what you have to say…. At least the white, wealthy men are creating technologies that are advancing society. The only reason you have these platforms to whine on is because they made them.”
Swift, in her statement to warktimes.com, said the tweets weren’t an accurate reflection of her views: “I have just as many left sided views as right,” she said, “but none of those were ever posted. I have to question why I am singled out to be investigated in the campaign.”
The leadership of the Town of Sackville has been criticized by Swift, among others, for a lack of transparency on issues such as allegations of bullying in the Sackville Fire Department.
But so far no controversies have emerged over the social media activity of her opponents — Sackville mayor Shawn Mesheau and deputy mayor Andrew Black — at least not during the current municipal election campaign.
CHMA reached out to the two other candidates by email. Black didn’t respond, while Mesheau provided an emailed statement.
“I have read the Warktimes blog and was disheartened by its contents,” he said. “My views have always been to embrace our diversities as people and I do not support negative campaigning. We must do better as a society to overcome the continued challenges faced by each member of our community, province, country and world.”
Tantramar residents go to the polls on Monday.
Statement posted by Tantramar mayoral candidate Bonnie Swift on her Facebook campaign page on November 22, 2022.
