An official with the Colombian consulate says it's not up to him to say whether Coun. Lloyd Ferguson should apologize for controversial comments about his country being backwards.

"I leave that to the City of Hamilton," Toronto-based trade commissioner Alvaro Concha said Thursday.

But far from entertaining apologies, an unrepentant Ferguson is on the attack.

He's "offended" that his reference to Colombia as a "backwards" place where the only wealthy are "drug lords" and chickens ride buses has been branded as stereotyping by politicians and members of the public.

"I wasn't making that crap up; it's what I visibly saw," said Ferguson, who visited Colombia 12 years ago for a weeklong business conference.

"I don't like being accused of stereotyping because I wasn't stereotyping. I witnessed it first hand."

Ferguson made his controversial comments during a budget meeting this week. He was responding to the city's transit director using a quote from the Mayor of Bogota, Colombia's capital city, stating a developed country is not where the poor have cars, but where the rich use public transit.

Calling the ensuing kerfuffle a "tempest in a teapot," the Ancaster councillor and police board chair says he was objecting to benchmarking Hamilton against Bogota, a city of eight million.

Coun. Mathew Green immediately took Ferguson to task for stereotyping. When the story went mainstream, it lit up social media and online commentary. Many demanded Ferguson apologize. The pitchfork-and-torch mob called him a racist and xenophobe.

One twit on Twitter accused Mayor Fred Eisenberger of agreeing with Ferguson because he was silent on the issue. Eisenberger pushed back, calling that and other comments as "outrageous" as Ferguson's own.

Still, Eisenberger later released a statement on Facebook stating there's no place for "stereotyping cultures" in society or around the council table. A little slow off the mark, but better late than never.

Eisenberger also praised Bogota for its progressive, pedestrian-friendly streets and contacted trade commissioner Concha to reassure him Hamilton values the investment connections made during the Pan Am Games last summer.

According to Concha, he told Eisenberger he knows these things happen and he's more than happy to offer Ferguson a "good cup of Colombian coffee" and talk about the real potential of his country and its role as a key player in Latin America.

Concha says misconceptions can arise among those who haven't taken a closer look at what Colombia has to offer. Yes, it's true, in certain "faraway" towns chickens do ride the buses with people, but he says that's just the way it works in the region.

"But it's also true that public transportation in Bogota has been a model in Latin America."

Unabashed and unapologetic, Ferguson says he's happy to listen to what Concha has to say — "I'll pay for the coffee"— but in return he may relay his impressions of Colombia's problems with poverty, violent crime and drug trafficking.

There's no question that Colombia, like many other Latin American countries, has deep-seated social problems. Global Affairs Canada tells visitors to exercise a high degree of caution and advises against travel in most rural areas because of "illegal armed groups."

Noting security has improved significantly in recent years, the U.S. State Department cautions travellers about the drug trade, extortion, kidnapping and robbery.

But Ferguson didn't expound on that. During a discussion about urban public transit, he referred to the only wealthy people being drug lords. Sorry, Lloyd. That's an unfair characterization, ergo a stereotype.

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As for people clinging to roofs and chickens aboard buses, he's probably referring to the brightly painted Chiva buses. Widely used in rural Colombia, they're something of a controversial rustic symbol of the country, according to Wikipedia.

Ferguson says he didn't see his bus-riding fowls in a faraway, rural place. He saw them in Cartagena, a major resort city. It was 12 years ago but it obviously left a deep impression. So much so he brought a small model of a bus home with him.

Thanks to the controversy, that model, complete with chickens, is now sitting on his office desk at city hall. Something to show visitors, something to point to and perhaps say, See, I'm right, they're all wrong.