Charlie Angus
Role at the time: Former New Democratic Party member of the Canadian Parliament for Timmins—James Bay, posting on his own Bluesky account
Statement summary
Charlie Angus, a former New Democratic Party member of the Canadian Parliament, responded to the Pentagon standing by Hegseth's post by saying he was unsurprised it would support trolling Canadian teenagers who volunteer to serve, and that Canadians are proud of their cadets. The remainder of his post made separate allegations about the Pentagon's conduct that are his own characterisations and are not at issue in this case.
“I am not surprised that the Pentagon supports trolling Canadian teenagers who volunteer to serve our nation. We are proud of our cadets.”
The speaker's own post. The post continues with allegations against the Pentagon concerning sailors, conduct at sea and the deaths of schoolgirls; those are the speaker's characterisations of separate matters, are not established by this record, and are not the subject of this case.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Why we used this label
Angus characterises it as trolling teenagers and answers it with an expression of national pride in the cadets, which rejects the conduct. The closest competing label is “Challenged the characterization”, since his target is the Pentagon's institutional defence rather than Hegseth's original post. That loses because he describes the underlying conduct itself as trolling young volunteers, which is an evaluation of the post and not only of the defence of it.