A Conservative candidate in Quebec says she is sorry after her campaign telephoned the father of a local murder victim to seek his daughter’s support -- not once but twice.
John Drummond, whose daughter Kelly-Anne Drummond was fatally stabbed by her boyfriend in 2004, said he “almost dropped the phone” last May when Pierrefonds---Dollard candidate Valerie Assouline called and asked for his daughter.
“My jaw just dropped,” he said. “I was standing and thank goodness I did not fall over.”
Assouline said she apologized immediately and removed Kelly-Anne’s name from her computerized list, but a volunteer using a paper list from Elections Canada recently called Drummond again.
Assouline said she is surprised other campaigns haven’t made the same mistake, considering that those lists are distributed to all parties.
Mother Doreen Haddad said the party should be able to coordinate its lists and that the mistake has caused her to question her long-standing support for the Conservatives.
Haddad, a dedicated advocate for victims of domestic violence, said “the lights should have gone on when they saw the name Kelly-Ann Drummond.”
Kelly-Anne’s murder and the subsequent conviction of her killer were widely covered by Quebec media over the years.
With a report from CTV Montreal
