New details are emerging about the British Columbia NDP candidate, who says he made a serious error in judgment by taking off his clothes in front of teens in an environmental retreat 12 years ago.
In a statement issued Sunday, Julian West - the NDP candidate for Saanich Gulf Islands -- said that aside from removing his clothes to go skinny-dipping, nothing inappropriate happened in the retreat.
But that is not the view of a woman who said she witnessed the incident and is speaking out for the first time to CTV.
"He did skinny dip, which even if that was all he did, is still insanely inappropriate to do around teenagers,'' said Leah Jones, during a phone interview with CTV.
"We were doing face-painting and he decided he wanted to get his legs painted, and some of the girls were painting his legs, and he took off his underwear and he had a partial erection and said why stop there girls,'' Jones said.
The alleged incident resurfaced in an email that was sent to CTV by a high-ranking member of the Liberal Party of Canada.
In the past couple of weeks, two NDP candidates withdrew from the federal election race after videos appeared on the Internet of them smoking marijuana.
But, so far, reaction from voters in Saanich has been mixed
Briony Penn, the Liberal candidate in the same riding, posed as Lady Godiva, riding on top of a horse, during a logging protest. But Penn said she doesn't think that he did anything wrong.
"Well I think all of us would say never throw rocks at glass houses,'' Penn said. "In my instance I certainly would say I consulted the Vancouver Police and was very respectful of the law and never broke any laws."
Meanwhile, Jones says she and six other women who were also witnesses to the skinny-dipping incident plan to write a letter to NDP leader Jack Layton calling on West to resign.
With a report by CTV British Columbia's Jina You
