After publicly accusing the Mayor of “embarrassing” the City of Kamloops during an open council meeting on Tuesday connected to — what he perceived as — rude comments from Reid Hamer-Jackson during a recent public event, Councillor Stephen Karpuk has back-tracked on his comments just over 12-hours after they were first made.

Appearing Wednesday morning on Radio NL, Karpuk issued the following statement:

“Yesterday I made a few avoidable mistakes during the regular city council meeting of June 26, 2023. Yesterday, during the Mayor’s Report, I and others took offense to some inappropriate comments the Mayor made toward some city staff. Subsequently in my Councillor Report, I asked the Mayor to apologize for his comments toward our staff, and reminded him of our role at City Hall. As an employer for our city, and being responsible for our workplace environment, I felt it important to speak up my concerns. Given the past few months of stress, frustration and emotions that I’ve endured dealing with City business, I became emotionally hijacked after the Mayor’s comments about our staff. My mistake was not stepping away from that situation in that moment. Instead I engaged the Mayor, and let my emotions speak. Letting my emotions speak was wrong, inappropriate, and I apologize. My next mistake was letting my emotions speak my accusation of the offside joke that I was told the Mayor had done in a public meeting. I should not have done that in yesterday’s public meeting, and I apologize for doing so. The correct approach would have been to raise my concerns with the Mayor in a private setting, and deal with it there. For reasons I can’t explain, I let my emotions get the better of me, and I falsely accused the Mayor of the joke. I subsequently found out the Mayor did not ask the joke. My accusation of the joke was based on incorrect information. Had I dealt with it in the prior way that I mentioned, in a prior meeting and in a private setting, I would not be here to own my mistake, and I do apologize for this.”

“I’d like to publicly apologize to the Mayor, Reid Hamer-Jackson. I apologize Your Worship for any harms that my public accusation on the offensive joke that may have been caused when I brought that up to you, your family or those who support you. I acted emotionally, instead of rationally. I am truly sorry for this. I ask for your forgiveness on my mistakes. My sincerest apologies to you all. I will reflect on your words from yesterday, that we all make mistakes, that we aren’t perfect, and I will learn from this. Would also like to apologize to my colleagues, our City staff, the citizens of Kamloops and my family. I would like to apologize for my behavior and my comments yesterday. I did not conduct myself in a manner that I would expect of an elected official, especially one for our great City of Kamloops. I will learn from this lesson. I promise to bring up my skills, decorum and representation to the level that people should expect of an elected official, especially one for our great city. I can do better, and I promise to be better. I ask for your forgiveness. I own my mistakes. Thank you, and I hope everyone has a great day.”

This comes after Karpuk said on Tuesday that he and others from the City were embarrassed at a recent dinner hosted by the Canadian Homebuilders Association, after accusing Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson of making ‘fart jokes’ before a crowd of hundreds during a discussion on carbon emissions and green energy.

“The groans in front of 230 people were embarrassing to me. ‘Do you want me to fart more’…really disgusting,” Karpuk told City Council Tuesday as part of his Councillor Report.  “So that – I was really embarrassed.”

Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson rejected the accusation.

“That’s dead wrong,” Hamer-Jackson countered, to which Karpuk fired back.  “No there were enough people there who can back that up.”

Radio NL is expected to hear from officials from the Canadian Home Builders Association later on this Wednesday to clarify the situation further.

Karpuk, speaking on the NL Morning News after issuing his mea culpa, says he was triggered by comments made by Reid Hamer-Jackson during the meeting about city staff.

“When you make a mistake, as I did with falsely accusing the Mayor, in my emotionally-heightened state…that was in appropriate,” conceded Karpuk.  “I wasn’t planning to bring it up, but after the Mayor’s comments about staff, I just… I guess my brain got a little bit too emotional and I literally should have just stepped aside.”

During his Councillor Report, Karpuk took exception to comments the Mayor made during his own report, in which he outlined a series of meetings he had taken, or was planning on taking, including with members of the city’s public sector union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).

“We have one employee — [Chief Administrative Officer] David Trawin. We don’t deal with other staff. That’s not our privy,” stated Karpuk at the Tuesday meeting.

He also took issue with comments made by Hamer-Jackson earlier in the session, where the Mayor said he received a number of public complaints about the work of the City’s Community Services Officers (CSO’s).

“Your comments today (Tuesday) about our CSO’s were very derogatory and negative,” argued Karpuk during the council session. “They do a fantastic job, and I think you owe them an apology, [Community and Protective Services] Director [Byron] McCorkell an apology for saying that they cannot do their job. I am really pissed off that you can go out there and make statements like that. Words matter.”

The Mayor did offer a counter response to Karpuk’s criticism at that time.

“The citizens in the community, I said, I was getting complaints. And that’s the fact,” countered Hamer-Jackson. “We’re not all perfect. I don’t do my job perfect, you don’t do yours perfect, CSO’s don’t do theirs perfect. I’m telling you what the citizens of the community are telling me, and I feel that we need to look at something a little bit different.”

Asked for a response to the apology, Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson has declined for the time being, telling NL News he is “busy doing City business all day.”