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Schinners defends taxpayers, Facebook posts

A perennial candidate for city council who has filed papers as a candidate in the Ward 2 by-election doesn't want his social media posts to overshadow his vision for council. Ron W.

A perennial candidate for city council who has filed papers as a candidate in the Ward 2 by-election doesn't want his social media posts to overshadow his vision for council.

Ron W. Schinners — who previously ran for Ward 6 in 2003 and 2006 along with an unsuccessful mayoral bid in 2010 — is running on a platform he says will appeal to seniors.

“I think our property taxes are too high and we need a tax reduction. The issue with the firefighters — cutting that department by 25 percent — is just going to cause our insurance rates to go up. And then I want this $14-million owed to the city by Essar Steel,” said Schinners by phone Thursday.

But after the recent federal election campaign — which saw some candidates being dropped from the ballots after they made questionable social media posts — Schinners is defending posts made on his own Facebook account.

SooToday was alerted to the Facebook posts shared by Schinners, which includes a photo of a burning Qur’an, disparaging posts about Muslims, and photos of women some would characterize as being sexist. 

One shared post shows a woman photographed from the neck down with exposed cleavage holding a box of doughnuts featuring the caption, ‘I love these things! Doughnuts are good too.”

Another suggests locking your dog and your wife in the trunk of your car to see which would be happy to see you when you let them out.

In another, two naked woman are photographed laying on their backs with bacon covering their private areas. That post was in celebration of a Quebec school district which refused to remove pork from school lunches.

“It’s pretty sad when you can’t even make a joke and people get offended. We’re getting too politically-correct,” said Schinners.

One of Schinners' posts reads ‘If you have more wives than teeth, you may be a Muslim.”

Schinners acknowledges the Facebook account is his and the posts were made by him.

Schinners said he knows some Muslims and thinks they have a good sense of humour.

He said he doesn’t think most would take offence to the posts.

"There [are] 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. Only 25 percent are radicals, the other 75 percent are the peaceful ones. It’s like saying the KKK represents all Christians — that’s not right,” he said.

Schinners said he has spent time in the Middle East, in Egypt and Israel.

“I know what these people are like,” he said.

He acknowledges ISIS does not represent the religion as a whole.

“ISIS does not represent Islam, they’re just barbarians."

Schinners applauds Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s efforts to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees.

“There are churches in this city who are sponsoring refugees and that is fantastic. It’s excellent that people are doing that because those people over there are hurting,” said Schinners.

He doesn’t want his social media posts to get in the way of the issues.

“This election is not about ISIS or Muslims, this is about Ward 2 in the city of Sault Ste. Marie.”

He laments not having been selected by voters in previous elections.

“I’ve been saying since 2003 that we have been paying the highest property taxes in the province. Guess what? I was right all along, we pay the highest taxes,” said Schinners.

“I’m just a 66-year-old guy who lives in Sault Ste. Marie and wants to better my community,” said Schinners.

(PHOTO: A screen grab of a recent post made to Ron W. Schinners' Facebook account.)

Previous SooToday coverage of this story:

It's official. Ron Schinners is not a Nobel laureate 


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Kenneth Armstrong

About the Author: Kenneth Armstrong

Kenneth Armstrong is a news reporter and photojournalist who regularly covers municipal government, business and politics and photographs events, sports and features.
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