Calgary Nose Hill Liberals defend former candidate Ala Buzreba over offensive tweets

Liberals for Calgary Nose Hill are coming to the defence of their former young candidate Ala Buzreba despite offensive comments she posted online.

• Liberal Ala Buzreba apologizes, steps downs after offensive tweets found
• Justin Trudeau on Ala Buzreba

The 21-year-old candidate in this fall's federal election resigned Tuesday after spending the day under fire for comments she had posted on Twitter in 2011.

Stephen Jenuth, the riding association's president, says those comments don't represent who she is today.

"When you discuss her thoughts today, what she thinks of multiculturalism, what she thinks of other religions, people who have differences in points of view, everything appeared to the Liberal Party to be quite appropriate," he said.

Jenuth believes the party vetted her sufficiently but admits they failed to search candidates' online histories as deeply as they should have.

Among the tweets, Buzreba tells someone to "go blow your brains out," and tells another that they should have been aborted — but  in more graphic terms.

New candidate being chosen

The tweets were written when she was 17-years-old. Jenuth says she has since changed, and points out that targeting the comments she made as a teen is unfair.

"If Stephen Harper had been using Twitter back in the '80s, I expect there would be bad news about him too," he said.

Buzreba apologized "unreservedly" on Twitter Tuesday morning before pulling out from running in the federal election.

The Liberals now hope to have a new candidate in place for Calgary Nose Hill within the next two weeks.

Jenuth says the party will no doubt take a closer look at that candidate's social media history.

Whether Buzreba's online blunder only hurt her political career, or damaged that of the Liberals in Calgary Nose Hill, will be decided by the voters, Jenuth says.

Meanwhile, Buzreba's sister posted a strongly worded statement on Facebook.

Warning: Contains offensive language.