An employee of a Nova Scotia cabinet minister has offered to resign after inflammatory tweets he posted offended some members of the province’s film industry.
Mark MacPhail, an assistant to Fisheries and Agriculture Minister Keith Colwell, took to his now-private Twitter account in recent days to express his disdain for those rallying to keep the Nova Scotia film tax credit unchanged.
“Basically calling the film industry louts, intimating that there was drug use at our rally on (last) Wednesday, the smell of weed at our rally, which is absolutely not true,” said local film editor and producer Kim McTaggart.
Colwell said the posts do not reflect his views on the issue.
“An apology, an official apology, has been given to me, and I believe one has also been put on social media,” Colwell said.
Colwell said MacPhail has offered his resignation, but he is still considering whether to accept it.
“There's no reasonable excuse for this, and that's sort of the end of my statement on it,” Colwell said.
On Monday, two members of the film industry met with Colwell for a second time in their campaign to convince cabinet members to change course.
After weeks of public pressure and private talks, some members of the film industry feel the government is beginning to soften its position.
After several meetings together, members of Screen Nova Scotia and the finance minister are remaining tight-lipped about what has been happening at their closed-door meetings.
They say talks are at a sensitive stage, and they’re planning to meet again sometime early this week.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Ron Shaw
