Nova Scotia’s Education Minster says at no time did he assault PC Leader Tim Houston.
Members of the PC Party walked out of the Nova Scotia Legislature yesterday after their leader accused Zach Churchill of assault.
Churchill tells Acadia News there was a heated verbal exchange over the Yarmouth ferry in which Houston said the PC’s had the Yarmouth MLA “on the ropes”.
He says Houston also mentioned Churchill being a guest on an Acadia News phone-in program recently.
“He mentioned ‘The Weekender’, the fact that I talked about him a long time, to which I responded that our community has lost money because of his commentary and his actions on the ferry. He said to me that was BS, I said it’s not BS.”
PC Leader Tim Houston is giving a completely different account as to what happened between him and Zach Churchill on Tuesday.
Houston says Churchill berated the PC leader about the Yarmouth ferry, followed Houston to a small area where members can make phone calls and assaulted him.
“I went to close the door, Zach held the door, I ripped it back open. I told him ‘just leave me alone, go away’, at which point he stepped back and slammed the door…but then he just immediately re-opened it. He came in to the booth and just kinda grabbed me by the shoulders and exchanged some more words there and I just said ‘get your hands off me and get out’.”
Churchill says the encounter was only verbal.
“I reached out and tried to shake his hand and say ‘we should calm down’. I tried to go up to hime after Question Period, again try to regain a reasonable level of discourse with him. That wasn’t possible either, my efforts were rebuffed.”
All the PC members walked out of the House yesterday after the Liberals voted against their motion to have the Speaker investigate Houston’s allegations.
Churchill says he’d like Houston to come to Yarmouth and debate him on the issue.
Reported by Gary Nickerson
