A former member of Parliament says “racism and hate” are to blame for sparking an online debate about a viral image of a man appearing to defecate at a gas station Tim Hortons parking lot in Brampton, Ont.
Raj Grewal, who was a Liberal MP for Brampton East from 2015 to 2019, said the image was photoshopped.
The image, which has been viewed eight million times since Monday night, shows a man wearing a bright orange turban bending down beside a black car, with his shorts bunched up around his knees. He appears to be holding a cup in his right hand.
It was posted on social media platform X by Harrison Faulkner, a producer at the right-wing media outlet True North.
“Brampton man just couldn’t walk the extra 15 yards to the bathroom. Mass immigration is totally working,” wrote Faulkner, including the image in his post.
Later on Monday evening, Grewal responded, saying he owned the property and that the alleged bathroom break in the parking lot “did not happen.” It was photoshopped, he said. He called on Faulkner to “do better.”
Many users on X did not believe Grewal.
“Yeah, someone just spent 10+ hours making Hollywood tier edits just to lie about this,” commented one person, sarcastically.
Faulkner replied, telling Grewal to prove the image was photoshopped.
On Wednesday, Grewal released a video that showed a man in an orange turban walking across the parking lot wearing pants. Grewal asserted the man in the video was the same as the one in the image.
“The elder man was not defecating in the open. He’s clearly wearing pants, not shorts — contrary to the photo that was initially shared. The racism and hate that’s been spread about this incident is disappointing and alarming.”
“Out of respect for the senior citizen involved we are not providing any further comment on this,” said Grewal.
The video was time-stamped, and one person in the comments pointed out: “That is surveillance video from like a week ago. This incident happened this past Monday.”
Another person claimed that the video shared by Grewal was from a different day, and shared a different video showing the alleged incident.
The images and the videos have not been independently verified.
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