What was meant to be a routine visit to Oak Ridges Public School turned into a bizarre showdown between MP for Oak Ridges-Markham and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Paul Calandra, and a grade 4 student.
Following a friendly lecture on the jobs that awaited students thanks to the Conservative government, fourth grader Amy Schumacher asked Calandra, “What is the government doing about climate change? Why isn’t the Prime Minister at the UN climate summit?”
Calandra responded “quite aggressively”, described Principal Barbara Nemoy. “He challenged a nine year old, asking her whether she stood with Israel or not.”
When Amy attempted to clarify stating she didn’t know anything about Israel and that she had asked about Canada’s stance on climate change, he responded, “You either stand with us, or you stand with the terrorists. And it looks like you’re on their side.”
Mooseclean’s staff attempted to contact several MPs on this bizarre exchange including Speaker of the House Andrew Scheer. Scheer responded by email saying, “I’m sorry, I can’t comment on that, I have to remain neutral. Plus I’m a little busy. Paul [Calandra] just sent me a life on CandyCrush. Also, the massager on the Speaker chair is broken so I have to deal with that.”
Photo: Sara Ann Lawrence, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)