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The assistant to a Liberal senator has taken the blame for a Twitter message that suggests the prime minister’s Republican-style policies will result in more terrorism in Canada.

The staffer for Céline Hervieux-Payette, former leader of the opposition in the Senate, confessed he accidentally unleashed the damning opinion from his boss’s Twitter account instead of his own.

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“#Harper wants to align #Canada with the US, wants the same republican (sic) policies: he will get also the same terrorists #cdnpoli #security,’ the tweet read.

Max Depontailler said he thought he was tweeting from his own account when he released the missive Monday afternoon, as news broke of two arrests connected with a thwarted terror plot on a VIA Rail route. He was, in fact, still logged in to Ms. Hervieux-Payette’s account.

Asked whether he was in trouble, Mr. Depontailler said “No, not at all. I just removed it right away because I was confused with my device.”

“I’m sorry about that,” he said, though he also confessed he hadn’t mentioned the mistake to his boss.

He also thought he scrubbed the tweet from the Internet’s memory within 10 seconds of realizing his mistake, but the tweet has surfaced on various cached sites, including PoliTwitter.ca.

“No way. I just released it and said ‘Oh, Jesus.’ And then I came back and deleted it,” he said.