A Coalition Montreal candidate running for a council seat has come under fire for social media posts on both her personal and professional social media accounts.
Community activist Caroline Orchard runs Le Grand Pas, an organization that helps provide First Nations peoples the skills they need to enter the job market. She's running to become a councillor in N.D.G., but a number of anti-feminist posts made by Orchard have recently come to light.
On her Facebook account, Orchard claims she hates radical feminists, openly criticizes plus-sized model Tess Holliday, voices her opposition to the women's march in Washington D.C. following U.S. president Donald Trump's inauguration in January and speaks out against women trying to change the term "rape". In one post, Orchard says feminists who try to convince themselves that obesity is beautiful is "something to make you vomit".
Coalition Montreal leader Marvin Rotrand describes Orchard as a working-class woman with conservative views and that she regrets any remarks that may be seen as offensive or poorly expressed.
Rotrand also notes several people have access to Le Grand Pas' social media accounts, and that it's possible Orchard wasn't the one who made the posts. He also says the party feels Orchard is being "trolled" by Projet Montreal, and that several of her election posters have been vandalized or have simply vanished.
While Orchard has yet to make an official statement on the social media posts, she tells CTV "everything from the past is irrelevant to my future work".
- With files from CTV Montreal