Toronto councillor tweets about “hot chicks,” promptly embarrasses himself

Toronto councillor tweets about “hot chicks,” promptly embarrasses himself

City councillor + Twitter = Instant embarrassment (Image: Mickey Hastings)

Sure, our public servants are human beings, too—they have their foibles and they make mistakes. But the fun part about living in today’s world is that social media gives politicians the opportunity to share their mistakes in a very public way, with a very public record, all day long! Why, only five years ago a city councillor hell-bent on embarrassing himself had to go as far as getting drunk and unruly at a hockey game and shouting at people in the stands (what happened to that guy, anyway?). Now all it takes is a smartphone and 140 characters for a councillor to do something they’re guaranteed to regret. Case in point: John Parker’s “hot chicks” tweet at a Toronto Heritage event yesterday.

According to the CBC:

Councillor John Parker was on hand at a Heritage Toronto event Monday to unveil a number of plaques honouring some of the city’s notable past citizens, including Marshall McLuhan.

Although the event went off without a hitch, the councillor made waves later in the day when he expressed his view of the overall event on the popular social networking tool Twitter.

“Delighted and honoured to help unveil eight new Toronto heritage plaques and meet hot chicks in the bargain,” he wrote. “I love my job.”

Now, according to the Star, the ladies in question didn’t take offense (“surprised” is how one described it), and a source in Parker’s office told the paper that they thought the councillor “was just trying to be cool.” Ouch. That’s basically the cruellest description we can think of—kind of like watching our lame uncle (or, say, Karl Rove) try to rap.

Meanwhile, Rob Ford is asking for Parker to apologize—something that Parker says he has no intention of doing. Of course, he did not say, “Rob Ford is asking me to apologize for doing something embarrassing? Really? Rob Ford?” (which just so happens to be under 140 characters). But that’s probably not something that the city council’s deputy speaker would want to say when he’s trying to get out of trouble.

UPDATE: Parker apologized early this afternoon for his “hot chicks” tweet.

Heritage employee ‘surprised’ by councillor’s ‘hot chicks’ tweet [Toronto Star]
Councillor tweets about “hot chicks” [Toronto Sun]
Rob Ford asks Parker to apologize for tweet [Globe and Mail]
Toronto councillor in ‘hot chicks’ tweet flap [CBC]