A Toronto, Ontario, mayor is facing an ethics probe over a Facebook post.
Mayor John Tory criticized the current measles vaccination protocol in a post on Sept. 15 and asked a woman online if she changed her menstrual cycle due to her COVID-19 vaccination, according to a report on Coun. Catherine McKenney’s website.
The post made reference to her having only heard about vaccinated people skipping their periods, McKenney wrote.
Although the female user wrote that she had no recollection of that, Tory responded with a message that suggested she was trying to “blame the MMR vaccine for your altered menstrual cycle.”
“OMG!!! Please confirm again, please confirm again! I don’t see your post having informed me of any such thing (sic),” Tory wrote on Facebook.
McKenney replied to Tory, accusing him of harassing a woman on Facebook. She also included screenshots of the Facebook post and an exchange with the woman’s mother.
“Your misogynistic comments do not reflect the values of our City or city staff,” she wrote.
Tory took to Facebook again, saying he takes the appearance of his comments as a “serious concern” for the city’s reputation.
“I am especially distressed that any elected official or staff member would make disparaging remarks about a woman via Facebook,” Tory wrote on Facebook. “This kind of grossly sexist behavior and language has no place in our politics.”
The city’s integrity commissioner is now looking into Tory’s Facebook post.
“It may reasonably be considered to be an issue of integrity or a non-financial concern,” Ontario politician David Mehr, the integrity commissioner’s special counsel, told Toronto’s Star.