The leader of Newfoundland and Labrador’s New Democratic Party has come under fire for tweeting that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent “a rookie woman minister” to announce that he’s abandoning his electoral reform promise.

But Earle McCurdy says his tweets were misunderstood and apologized for not wording them better. The point he was trying to make, he said, is that a self-proclaimed feminist prime minister was letting a female minister take the fall for him. Federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May made a similar point on Wednesday.

After newly-appointed Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould announced Wednesday that changing the way Canadians vote in federal elections is no longer on the Trudeau government’s agenda, McCurdy sounded off on Twitter.

McCurdy’s tweets drew dozens of angry responses from people who accused him of being sexist.

McCurdy told NTV Thursday that many people misinterpreted his tweets.  

“The only reason I mentioned the fact she’s a woman was (because) that’s two women (Trudeau) has put in that portfolio now, giving them really an impossible task to defend the indefensible, and in the meantime failed to take the heat for it himself,” McCurdy said. 

“I could have worded the tweet better, and so I certainly apologize for not doing so…It was really about the minister being thrown under the bus by the so-called feminist prime minister.”

McCurdy pointed out that Green Party Leader Elizabeth May expressed the same sentiment.  

“As a women leader of a federal political party in this country, I am deeply ashamed that our feminist prime minister threw two young women cabinet ministers under the bus on a key election promise,” May said Wednesday.