Photo submitted by Darrell Bastarache.
One of Saint John’s four mayoral candidates says he fired his campaign manager after he was found guilty of assaulting a woman in court this week.
Darrell Bastarache’s former campaign manager, Ed Hoyt, is currently awaiting sentencing.
According to media reports, Hoyt was also convicted of assaulting a former girlfriend in 2017.
Bastarache said he was unaware of Hoyt’s past when he hired him to manage his campaign.
“First one [conviction] caught me a little bit by surprise, but where it was four years ago… I was like ‘well, maybe we can let this one slide,'” Bastarache said. “But then once the second one came out I was like ‘whoa, we can’t let this slide anymore.'”
Hoyt has now been removed from Bastarache’s campaign page and has nothing to do with the campaign moving forward.
The mayoral hopeful said he actually made up his mind to let Hoyt go two weeks before he was found guilty but agreed to wait before dismissing him.
“To treat him fairly I gave him the benefit of the doubt,” Bastarache said. “Just like I would anybody else.”
Bastarache has begun the process of finding his next campaign manager and plans to vet candidates more carefully than he did Hoyt.
“I just met with a couple of people in the political arena to talk about another campaign manager – a little more vetting this time,” he said with a laugh.
Bastarache cited community feedback calling for him to dismiss Hoyt for helping him make his decision weeks ago.
“I was getting some bad feedback,” he said. “But once I explained to the constituents what was really going on with my thought process, believe it or not, they understood. But they kept saying ‘you still have to let him go.'”
Now he says by dismissing Hoyt, he’s sending a message that his campaign doesn’t condone violence against women.
“I love women. Ask my wife, I love women,” said Bastarache. “I would not want any harm done to a woman in any way, shape or form. And I don’t want to be a person portrayed as backing someone like that up.”
There are three other candidates seeking the mayor’s office in Saint John – Councillor Donna Reardon, Mel Vincent Jr., and Howard Yeomans.
