Treasury Board Minister Tony Clement apologized this week to a teenager he called a “Jackass” on Twitter.
He hurled the insult during a late-night Twitter exchange with the youth, Keith Pettinger, 15, of Parry Sound, after a televized NHL hockey game last Saturday.
Clement, a Tweeter addict, wrote that hockey commentator Don Cherry had given him something to think about “tonite.”
The youth, deciding to be smart-aleck, wrote back asking Clement to accompany him to Parry Sound High School Monday morning to learn how to spell “tonight” correctly.
It was a teenage grammar moment, but Clement didn’t find it that way and wrote back calling Pettinger is a ‘jackass.’
It’s not the sort of remark ministers usually make to future constituents.
Tuesday morning Clement tweeted again, apologizing to the youth, most likely at the suggestion of the prime minister’s office.
