As fallout from Mississauga's judicial inquiry continued Wednesday, Councillor Bonnie Crombie surprised observers by accusing a long-time city watchdog of "cyber-stalking" her teenage children.
The allegation came after Ursula Keuper-Bennett, who maintains a critical blog called MississaugaWatch, raised questions about council's response to the recently concluded inquiry, which found Mayor Hazel McCallion acted improperly by advocating for her developer son.
"What qualities do you possess to make you an authority on ethical behaviour?" Ms. Crombie demanded.
After Ms. Keuper-Bennett, appearing to be caught off guard, conceded she was not an ethics expert, the Ward 5 councillor unleashed a tirade.
"Is it ethical to create a video on a 14-year-old child?" Ms. Crombie demanded. "Is it ethical to cyber-stalk a minor [and] to go after politicians' children in videos?"
She was referring to an online video compilation featuring Facebook photographs of her three children that was uploaded by "MississaugaWatch" this past August. The video primarily focuses on Alex Crombie, now 22, contrasting picture of his vacations and parties with a Facebook site he created to support his political ambitions.
But the video also highlights photographs of 14-yearold Natasha Crombie and 18year-old Jonathan Crombie. The children were younger in some of the featured photographs, Ms. Crombie said.
Ms. Keuper-Bennett says she looked the children up after discovering the Crombie sons' names on a 2009 petition urging the city to cancel the inquiry.
"You have breached every code of conduct that I can imagine by going after my family on a personal level," Ms. Crombie fumed.
Ms. Keuper-Bennett disputed the cyber-stalking allegation, suggesting Ms. Crombie was merely trying to avoid the inquiry discussion.
"She's been trying to sweep the inquiry under the rug," Ms. Keuper-Bennett said, noting her video aimed to underscore Ms. Crombie's "hypocrisy" as a public figure who sent her children to private school.
Ms. Keuper-Bennett also pointed to Ms. Crombie's public Web presence, which includes photos of her children posing with Liberal MP Justin Trudeau.
The unexpected exchange took the focus squarely off Ms. Keuper-Bennett's council presentation, which called into question the city's response to the $7-million inquiry. She replayed clips from last week's fiery general committee meeting, during which pro-inquiry Councillor Nando Iannicca lashed out at his pro-McCallion colleagues: "If you did not vote for the inquiry, if you do not agree with its findings and if you are not appalled at what happened, you are not fit for public service."
Source:http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/toronto/story.html?id=65dcd18b-590a-4a2e-b537-c844ede81fd3
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