An e-mail that has enraged a community group in Brookfield was never meant as an insult, Nova Scotia's environment minister says.

The Shortt Lakes Residents Association had been trying to contact Environment Minister Mark Parent to complain about a plan to burn tires for fuel at a local cement plant.

A Dec. 11 message from Parent's e-mail account to a member of the association reads: "Thanks V — I'll be sure to tell them all where they can go — oops I mean — where they should call."

Parent says the e-mail was sent by his assistant, Joanne Bond, and it was meant to be an internal communication to his secretary, Virginia.

The environment minister says letters about the possibility of burning tires should have been sent to his office in Halifax instead of his constituency office in Kentville, and that's what his assistant meant in the e-mail.

"Her character is absolutely unfailingly polite with constituents," Parent said in defence of Bond.

She was correcting an honest mistake in the e-mail and was not being sarcastic, he added.

But Jim Harpell, president of the Shortt Lakes Residents Association, says the e-mail reveals the provincial government's true attitude toward his group.

Making a retraction in mid-sentence only makes sense with verbal mistakes, he said.

"With a keyboard at your hand, you can delete in half a second that whole thing and start again, so I don't buy it," Harpell said.

Bond says she meant no disrespect to anyone and was merely correcting herself, and is willing to apologize to the association privately.
CBC

[hr]

Does he honestly think anyone is going to buy this story? It was a legitimate typo?

Pretty funny, regardless.

   

A typo? oh please.

   

LOL...Another politician gets caught showing his true colours.

A typo my ASS!!

   

Another one bites the dust .... lol

   

I'm sure that teh environment minister of Nova Scotia is a lying sack of--oops, I mean--just made an honest mistake.

   

ROTFL

To be fair, it was his assistant....