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Racist, ableist, body-shaming language used by Ward 6 candidate

Old Facebook posts by Ward 6 candidate Scott Seguin have come to light, prompting concern from local citizens regarding his character, though Seguin said they are reflective of a negative blip in his life and not the person he has been, on the balance
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Ward 6 candidate Scott Seguin is seen next to the vehicle he uses for neighbourhood watches in the Valley in this file photo from earlier this summer.

A racial slur and jokes, ableist language, body-shaming and dismissing the death of people who use substances have been unearthed in past online posts by Ward 6 candidate Scott Seguin.

Some of these posts were exposed in a Sudbury Star article last week, but numerous additional messages have since come to light on social media and through private correspondence with Sudbury.com from concerned citizens.

Among the old public Facebook posts brought forward are a handful in which Seguin used the word “P*ki,” a racist term for Pakistanis which has also been applied to other racialized people, mainly of south Asian origin.

“It brings back memories,” Bela Ravi told Sudbury.com upon reading up on Seguin’s past online activity and his use of “P*ki.” 

“It just hit a nerve with me.”

Ravi is president of the Sudbury Multicultural & Folk Arts Association, sits as a board member for such organizations as the Local Immigration Partnership and the India-Canada Association and was awarded the Honorary Doctorate of Sacred Letters from Huntington University last year. She immigrated to Canada from India in 1973, and said she remembers being called the racist term Seguin used when she first arrived in Toronto.

“I thought my kids and grandkids would not be hearing this, and it looks like they will be,” she told Sudbury.com. “I thought we’d come a long way, but it looks like we’ve got a long way to go.”

The posts in question were made between approximately two and five years ago. Although Seguin told Sudbury.com they are not representative of the person he is today, one of the targets of his past posts said his behaviour is indicative of someone not “fit to lead anything.”

Seguin targeted the woman for her weight approximately five years ago by writing, “if I told you to put the McDonald’s down and hit a treadmill I’m more than aloud (sic).” 

Screenshots of Facebook correspondence provided to Sudbury.com, which Seguin did not question the validity of, show him referring to someone as a “half P*ki chick.” Sudbury.com has censored the racist word in this story.

The woman, whom Sudbury.com spoke with on the grounds she would remain anonymous, responded to Seguin’s post by arguing “p*ki is a racial slur.” Seguin countered that it’s simply “short form for Pakistanian (sic).”

“I care more about freedom of speech,” Seguin later posted after continued criticism for using racist language. “And whatever I want to say should be allowed to be said if you don’t like it suck it the f****** and go live in your house and your little bubble.”

A local man of Pakistani heritage involved in a local cultural association spoke to Sudbury.com under the agreement he would not be named, and said he hadn’t heard “P*ki” being used locally, but that it’s a “bad and hateful” word with racist origins in the United Kingdom.

“Of course it’s a racial slur,” he said. “It’s a word of hate speech, and that’s the context.”

The use of a slur wasn’t the only instance of racism Seguin participated in on social media approximately five years ago. Another includes a meme featuring children of various races and a caption reading, “All races are equal / No matter if you’re black, brown, yellow or normal.”

Another includes a rundown of his birthday presents for a Black child, which included “a watermelon, a grape juice and some fried chicken,” highlighting a few racial stereotypes.

Those who don’t laugh at racist jokes such as this, he added at the time, are “pussies.”

In response to an article about animal cruelty involving a dog, Seguin responded approximately five years ago, “I love Vietnamese cuisine.” 

As for people who use substances, he wrote, “There’s a choice in putting drugs in your body that you know are killing people. So it sounds like the problem is fixing itself.”

Reflecting on these old Facebook posts with Sudbury.com this week, Seguin said he has been targeted by online trolls with political motivations intent on destroying his campaign by digging up his past.

“I know it can come off and be twisted to make it look like I’m a racist, but I’m not – not in any way shape or form,” he said. 

“I’ve never at any point in my life ever degraded somebody because of the colour of their skin or where they were born or where they came from. I don’t believe in that.”

Screenshots of past correspondence have been selectively chosen, Seguin said, and took place during a difficult time in his life when he was not in a good emotional state.

“I’ve never been a racist person, but I will not deny that at one point in my life I was a very angry person,” he said.

Having gone through counselling and anger management since that time, he added that he is no longer the person who trolled people online with hateful language. 

“I have done the work to better myself, to become the person I am today, who contributes to the community and gives back prior to this negative part of my life,” he said. 

“I apologize for my behaviour, and I hope people realize that I’m not this angry person who can’t work with others.”

Ravi said she hopes Seguin has changed for the better and that he will come out with something better than a recent Facebook post he wrote in response to his old posts coming to light, which she said is more of an explanation than an apology. 

“He’s trying to justify it by saying that others have done it too,” she said. “People change, for the better, we hope, and I hope he has learned from his mistakes.”

Having noticed an increase in racism in recent months, Ravi said she’s working on a Greater Together campaign to help combat the issue, for which details will be released in the near future.

In Ward 6, Seguin is running against Dan Boulard, Michel Lalonde, Ginette Trottier and incumbent René Lapierre. Sudbury.com reached out to all of these candidates this week for reaction to Seguin’s past online activity, but only received a response from Lapierre. 

“It is unfortunate this type of approach of communication is used by anyone,” he said. “I prefer to follow the leadership style of Charles W. Pickering, who states: ‘A healthy democracy requires a decent society; it requires that we are honourable, generous, tolerant and respectful.’”

Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.


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Tyler Clarke

About the Author: Tyler Clarke

Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
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