Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas NDP federal candidate Alex Johnstone is refusing to say anything on the now controversial comments she has made about the World War II concentration camp Auschwitz.

Paul Mason, Johnston’s campaign manager, said the candidate will not talk about the issue for the moment. He did say that a statement could be released within a day.

Johnstone has apologized for comparing concrete posts used to hold up the electrical fencing at Auschwitz to a penis. Later in an interview with a Hamilton Spectator reporter, Johnstone, a public school trustee with the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, stated that she “didn’t know” that Auschwitz was a concentration camp. Since that comment, Johnstone has become a national news story, and she was trending on Twitter.

Her social media “joke” stated that “Ahh, the infamous Pollish (sic) phallic, hydro posts…of course you took pictures of this! It expresses how the curve is normal, natural and healthy, right!”

On a Facebook post made on Sept. 22, Johnstone stated her comments were made in 2008 after viewing a friend’s photo posted online that was taken during a trip to Poland.

“While never intending any malice, this comment was clearly inappropriate,” stated Johnstone. “I would like to offer my unreserved apology for this comment.”  

The apology was made prior to an all-candidates’ debate held at the Dundas Baptist Church Sept. 22. Johnstone’s comments were not brought up during the evening.

Johnstone also thanked her supporters on Twitter, including Tom Cooper, director of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, and “others for your forgiving words. If there is a silver lining, I hope others learn from my experience.”

Johnstone, who was first elected trustee in 2010, easily re-elected in 2014, is in a tough race against Liberal candidate Filomena Tassi, Vincent Samuel, the Conservative candidate and Green Party candidate Peter Ormond. The new riding of Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas, which was carved out of the former Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale riding, doesn’t have an incumbent, so it is wide open.

Johnston was also the NDP candidate in the 2014 Ontario election, but lost to incumbent Liberal MPP Ted McMeekin.

The controversial comments were revealed by the online publication True North Times, which sent the social media post about Auschwitz, and another post about comments Johnstone made about feudalism and capitalism to various media outlets.

In one 2010 post on the economy, Johnstone states that “We tweaked feudalism and wound up with a slightly better version – capitalism. It’s going to take a lot more than tweaking capitalism to create a truly just and fair society.”

The Times boasts that is it continuing a #9Scandals9Days effort revealing social media posts by current federal candidates.

Johnstone is one of a number of federal candidates who have recently been taken to task for past comments made on social media. For instance, Soheil Eid, a Conservative candidate in Joilette, Que. apologized twice for a Facebook post that compared NDP leader Thomas Mulcair and comments attributed to Joseph Goebbels’s, Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister during the Second World War. And the director of communications for NDP leader Thomas Mulcair apologized after two-year-old tweets revealed his criticism of the Roman Catholic Church for human rights violations.