VANCOUVER—A B.C. MLA has pulled his endorsement of Port Moody mayoral candidate Robert Vagramov after viewing a “deeply offensive” video showing Vagramov undertaking a profanity-laced random act of kindness in 2014 during which he offers food to a Vancouver homeless man on condition he shotgun a beer with him.

Rick Glumac, a New Democrat MLA for Port Moody-Coquitlam, wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday that the content of the four-year-old video was “inconsistent with views and values I hold about dignity and respect for all people.”

“After taking some time to reflect on what I saw and heard, I can no longer stand by my endorsement of his candidacy,” Glumac concluded in the post.

A spokesperson for Glumac’s office said the MLA would not be commenting further, and that the post was the entirety of what Glumac intended to say on the subject.

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Port Moody mayoral candidate's mea culpa video didn't show full story

Vagramov, currently a Port Moody city councillor, released an edited version of the video Monday as part of an interview conducted by psychiatric nurse and co-ordinator for the Affordability Action Hub, Christina Gower. He prefaces his screening of the video for Gower by referring to it as a “little gem,” adding he’d initially thought, in 2014, that he’d been nominated for a beer-chugging challenge, but was “bummed out” to discover otherwise.

After screening the video for Gower, Vagramov says he believes his heart was in the right place. It does, he adds, feel “super cringe-y” to view the video now, given how his perspective has shifted as a member of council since 2014.

Hindsight has made it clear, Vagramov tells Gower, that giving beer to people who are homeless may not be “the best idea” because of “substance abuse issues,” adding he would no longer chug beer in downtown Vancouver.

He does, however, still “swear like a sailor” in the company of friends, he says.

The video he showed to Gower, however, had been edited from its original form in two ways: he did not show her a part of his introduction where he appears to mock the ways other participants in the random acts of kindness challenge choose to give; and he did not show Gower the end of the video, where he concludes with a “W” hand sign and says “West Coast!”

Vagramov did not respond to email, phone call or text message requests for comment.

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