\u00a0use of the notwithstanding clause<\/a> to end the teachers’ strike.<\/p>\n“So you hear her, you know, using an obscenity. She’s preparing to talk to me, so she provided my number, my name,” Firby said. “It was unmistakably Tanya Fir, so I was quite upset, you know, a little bit angry.”<\/p>\n
The two-term MLA was first elected to represent Calgary-Peigan in 2019. She has served as the province’s minister of arts, culture and status of women since 2023.<\/p>\n
Incident was ‘a moment of poor judgement’: MLA<\/p>\n
In a statement sent to CBC News, Fir acknowledged the incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a moment of poor judgement, I flippantly used an inappropriate word that I had been called following political disagreement over the past few weeks,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I have offered my sincere apologies to the individual.\u201d<\/p>\n
Firby said he spoke with Fir following the incident and forgave her.<\/p>\n
“I was moved by her contriteness,” he said. “She was very, very apologetic, and I thought, ‘OK, she made a mistake. She’s owning up to it. I have to forgive her.'”<\/p>\n
According to Firby, the MLA said “she had cracked a joke” in light of “the threats and the swearing and hostility” she faces from critics.<\/p>\n
Foul language is ‘politically destructive’: prof<\/p>\n
Mount Royal University political scientist Lori Williams said public figures should set a better example with their word choices, and that foul language and verbal abuse should not be acceptable from politicians or their critics.<\/p>\n
“It’s politically destructive and actually undermines the character and quality of our democracy,” she said. <\/p>\n
Firby said during his conversation with Fir, she had played him voicemails in which she was referred to as a “motherf—-r” and subjected to other profanity.<\/p>\n
Williams said “politicians come under fire in this way all too often, and particularly female politicians.”<\/p>\n
“The unfortunate thing is the recording is going to be what most people hear, and not the apology or the provocation behind it,” she said. “And worst of all, in an environment where people are angry because they feel unheard by the government, this feeds that impression.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":384586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-384585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115563514045356806","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Text](\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Substack](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763359155_899_default.jpg\")
Substack columnist and Calgary-Piegan resident Doug Firby was sent a voicemail left for another constituent by MLA Tanya Fir, in which the MLA used profanity. Firby said the message was dated Nov. 10. (Submitted by Doug Firby)<\/p>\n