Opposition leader defends calling Premier Houston a ‘liar’ after legislature walkout
NDP Leader Claudia Chender says the PC’s are engaged in a “smear campaign” to paint her as opposed to affordable housing.
Chender walked out of the legislature yesterday following a heated exchange with Premier Tim Houston and the speaker of the house.
She says it’s because she called the premier a liar after his comments about her being opposed to the Mount Hope housing project.
The opposition leader and the NDP have been pressing the Houston government about their affordable housing plan, and calling on them to establish a permanent rent cap.
“This week we have been focussed on bringing forward solutions on housing, in particular, housing people can actually afford,” said Chender. “We’ve given the government notice about all of our proposals. We’ve let them know, and what we’ve seen in response is really a smear campaign.”
On Wednesday the PC government sent out a press release linking to an article that featured Chender attending a protest of housing being built in Mount Hope, followed by photos of her attending the ribbon cutting ceremony.
The email had the subject line “Claudia Chender attends opening of affordable homes she protested against building”.
“Our government understands the need to build more homes,” said Eastern Passage MLA Barbara Adams in the release. “The NDP like to talk about the need for more homes, but when the time came to support building or blocking, they chose to stand against this development.”
Chender called this a lie, saying that at the time she was opposed to a number of different issues with the process, including the province overstepping its bounds with the city, cutting their own deals with developers and expediting environmental approvals.
“I went and I did a number of interviews, and in all those interviews what I said is that we need housing,” said Chender. “But we need to make sure that it’s affordable, and that it’s being built with good environmental protections.”
When Premier Houston brought the project up during the Legislature session, Chender said she called him a liar.
“I did. I did. I said that’s a lie, I didn’t say it on the microphone, I said it to the Premier, but of course, it’s a small room, the speaker heard me,” said Chender. “The premier said something that wasn’t true, and I called him out for it… Then he doubled down and said it again.”
Chender apologized and retracted her unparliamentary language at the speaker of the house’s request, but left after the second time Houston brought it up, calling him a liar again.
She later returned to legislature, and said if she needs to retract the word again she will do so, because it’s important to the people who elected her that she can be in there representing them.
