A wedding photographer from Vancouver Island is fuming after a shirtless picture she snapped of Justin Trudeau was co-opted for a Conservative attack ad.
Marnie Recker’s photo of the prime minister “photobombing” a beachside wedding while surfing in Tofino went viral after she posted it on Twitter last weekend.
But the photographer said she was stunned when she saw it used without her permission in an ad for the Conservative party just days later.
“I understand people sharing the photo on social media,” Recker said in a statement.
“But for a national political party to take my photo, which is clearly watermarked, blow it up so the watermark isn’t visible and use it in this way is unlawful and they should be held accountable.”
She hired a lawyer to serve the Conservative Party with a cease and desist letter on Tuesday, ordering it to remove the ad within 24 hours.
By Thursday, the ad was no longer visible on the party’s Twitter or Facebook accounts.
Asked for comment, a Conservative spokesman said the intention of the ad was to highlight how “there’s more interest in, and concern about, a shirtless photo of the Prime Minister than there seems to be over the 110,000 jobs lost in Canada in the last two months.”
“Canadians need a plan for jobs, instead they’re getting vacation photos of Mr. Trudeau,” Cory Hann said in an email.
The 110,000 figure comes from Statistics Canada, which found Canada lost 71,000 full-time jobs in July and another 40,100 in June. Those losses were offset by increases of 40,000 part-time jobs in July and 39,400 in June.
On Twitter, Recker said putting out an ad criticizing the Liberals for lost jobs while “stealing and disrespecting” her work as a professional photographer amounted to “hypocrisy.”
