Rick Mercer lashes out at Burnaby Conservatives for posting fake endorsement
Credit to Author: Scott Brown| Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2019 21:51:03 +0000
Rick Mercer is calling out the Conservative candidate in Burnaby North-Seymour for sharing a doctored quote from the TV personality on social media.
On Monday, the Burnaby North-Seymour Conservative Constituency Association, who is backing candidate Heather Leung, posted a photo of the comedian on Facebook with a quote taken from a “Rick’s Rant” segment that aired on his CBC show the Mercer Report in 2011.
The original quote said: “If you’re between the age of 18 and 25 and you want to scare the hell out of the people that run this country, this time around do the unexpected. Take 20 minutes out of your day and do what young people all around the world are dying to do. Vote.”
In the now-deleted meme posted by the association, the final part of the quote was changed from “Vote” to “Vote Conservative.”
When asked on Twitter if he was really endorsing the Tory party in the Oct. 21 federal election, Mercer said the quote wasn’t real and “just a straight-up fake by the candidate, I guess.”
Nope. Not real. Just a straight up fake by the candidate i guess. https://t.co/0jkypY3S9W
The funnyman, who wasn’t amused to have his face and words turned into a fake political endorsement, appealed to Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer to put a stop to it. “Dear @AndrewScheer & good folks at @Cpc_hq — Your candidate in Burnaby North-Seymour is distributing a meme on social media with my face and the words “Vote Conservative” indicating it is a quote from me. Not true. All fake. Please Stop,” Mercer said in a Tweet.
Conservative Party spokesman Simon Jefferies told Postmedia News that the meme was shared by someone who was “not involved on the local campaign.”
The meme was posted by Ariane Eckardt, who is listed on the CPC website as being the president of its Burnaby North-Seymour electoral district association. Eckardt, who says she runs the Facebook page and is “lightly involved” in the campaign, told Postmedia that the fake Mercer meme was never meant be taken serious.
“It was a joke, but all the lefties took umbrage with it, so we took it down” she said. “We were very surprised when people took it serious.”
Postmedia has reached out to the Burnaby North-Seymour Conservative Association and Leung for comment. According to the Burnaby Now, Leung hasn’t responded to a media inquiry in months, dating to before she won the riding’s nomination in May.
Leung is running against Liberal incumbent Terry Beech, New Democrat Svend Robinson, the Green party’s Amita Kuttner and People’s Party of Canada candidate Rocky Dong.