Conservative senator MacDonald derides Ottawa residents in video

'I apologize to the people of Ottawa' Conservative Senator Michael MacDonald apologized in the Senate following comments he made in a video, deriding Ottawa residents.

WARNING: This story contains disturbing language.

A Conservative senator from Nova Scotia was seen on a video deriding the response of people who live in Ottawa to recent protests, saying he’s sick of their entitlement and “six-figure salaries and 20-hour work weeks.”

In the video recorded near Parliament Hill, Sen. Michael MacDonald expressed support for the protesters who occupied Ottawa for more than three weeks.

“It’s a cross-section of Canadians who have said we have had enough of the bullying, and the duplicity and the lies,” he said.

Reached Sunday night, MacDonald said the video was recorded Wednesday night when he was returning from dinner and had been drinking. He said he had asked the person with the camera not to record.

“I’m mortified,” he told CTV News.

He said he will issue an apology in the Senate on Monday.

“I’m going to go up and take my medicine," he said. "I have always been a responsible senator. I’ve let a lot of people down.”

In the video, MacDonald said he wanted protesters to leave Windsor, Ont., and other places they are interfering with transportation, "but in Ottawa, I don’t want them to leave,” he added.

He mocked the response of Ottawa residents to the protests, saying: “Oh, I hear this all the time – ‘They’re in our city’ – It’s everybody’s f------ city.”

“This is the capital of the country. It’s not your g------ city just because you have a six-figure salary and you work 20 hours a week,” he says.

Among those in Ottawa earning six-figure salaries are senators, like MacDonald, who are paid a base salary of $160,000 annually and can serve until age 75.

The video appeared to be recorded by someone sympathetic to the protests.

MacDonald thanked the person recording for having the “courage and decency” to come to Ottawa.

MacDonald also described his own wife as “a Karen,” because she wanted the protesters to leave.

A “Karen” is a derisive term often used online to describe someone who complains about vaccination and COVID-19 mask mandates. In fact, Sen. MacDonald’s wife is named Marilyn, according to his Senate biography.

“I’m so sick of the entitlement of this country and this f------ city,” he added, “and their b------- nonsense, calling people bigots and racists and everything else. This is so unfair.”

In October, MacDonald became the first member of the Conservative caucus to call for a review of former leader Erin O’Toole’s leadership.

He will also be voting in the Senate on the Liberal government’s legislation invoking the Emergencies Act in response to the protest in Ottawa and elsewhere, should it pass through the House of Commons.

MacDonald spent most of his career working in provincial and federal politics and served as the vice-president of the Conservative Party of Canada until he was appointed to the Senate in 2009 on the advice of then-prime minister Stephen Harper.