OTTAWA - A Conservative candidate in the federal election says Barack Obama isn't just the worst president in the history of the United States -- he's the biggest liar, too.
The reason is the president's stance on abortion.
Wally Daudrich, the Tory challenger in a northern Manitoba riding, posted his assessment of the U.S. president on his Facebook page over concerns about U.S. health-care legislation.
Daudrich's post, complete with spelling errors, said Obama had topped Jimmy Carter as the most inept U.S. leader ever and surpassed Richard Nixon as the biggest liar to occupy the Oval Office.
"Obama passes his pro abortion funding bill," Daudrich wrote on March 21, 2010. "No longer is Jimmy Carter the worst president that America has ever had. No longer is Richard Milhaus Nixon the biggest lieing president America has ever had."
The landmark heath-care reform bill -- aimed at extending coverage to millions of uninsured Americans -- outraged people on both sides of the abortion debate.
Obama signed an executive order that reaffirmed limits on federal funding for abortion in order to ensure passage of the bill. But some critics argued the legislation would open the door to more abortions.
By midday Saturday the post had been removed from his Facebook page.
Daudrich, an avid outdoorsman who runs the Lazy Bear Lodge in Churchill, Man., is running against incumbent New Democrat Niki Ashton.
He didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Conservative party spokesman Fred Delorey had little to say about Daudrich's online posting.
"A lot of people have made a lot of comments about various world leaders," Delorey said. "That's their opinion."
In a Friday campaign speech, Prime Minister Stephen Harper touted a Canada that is by turns a "courageous warrior and a compassionate neighbour."
"This is the not the Canada where the previous national government thought it had to bash our American friends."
It had long been fashionable among liberal-leaning Canadians to poke insults at Obama's predecessor -- Republican George W. Bush.
But under the Liberal government, an MP was expelled from caucus and a spokeswoman for then-prime minister Jean Chretien was fired when the insults against the president were deemed to have gone too far.
Delorey said Harper has a "good working relationship" with Obama.
On the subject of abortion, he said the party is "not interested in reopening any debate on this issue."
