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Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet says social media platform X has restored his account two weeks after it was hacked and started promoting Bitcoin — which is almost as long as it took for the party to publicly admit something was wrong.
“I am evidently and absolutely not a promoter of cryptocurrency, which is a subversion of the rule of law,” Blanchet wrote in a post on his own account shortly before 7:30 a.m. Friday.
Those were some of the few words from Blanchet that his 54,400 followers on X have seen since his account was hacked on July 11, when it was linked to a cryptocurrency trader with the user name @CoachRomieRome who said he was thrilled to have received a second payment of $31,000.
That post was deleted, but earlier this week an identical one reappeared on Blanchet’s account, followed by another post insisting that the messages are real and a pinned retweet that said, “Bitcoin and Crypto changed my life.”
On Wednesday, 11 days after the initial hack, the party publicly admitted to the breach in its own post on X, warning users “not to click on any of the publications linked to cryptocurrency and any other link until they hear otherwise from the Bloc Québécois.”
The Bloc said it did not sound any alarms after the initial hack because X deleted the first suspicious post promptly, and Blanchet still had control of his account until he was locked out of it this week.
“As soon as there was a first hack of Mr. Blanchet’s account, we advised the administration of the House of Commons and IT services in order to ensure Mr. Blanchet’s device safety,” party spokesperson Joanie Riopel said in a statement to CBC News.
Riopel said the party has been unable to determine exactly how Blanchet’s account was hacked, and said it had followed all the steps requested by X to regain access.
“Unfortunately, X’s collaboration is not optimal,” Riopel wrote before the remaining suspicious posts were deleted Thursday evening. The account was restored early Friday morning.
That restoration occurred sometime after CBC News reached out to X for comment, and also after several media outlets wrote about the hack.
“We will follow the situation closely, in order to ensure Mr. Blanchet’s account is secured correctly,” Riopel wrote.
All Canadian federal party leaders regularly post on X, with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Prime Minister Mark Carney leading the pack in terms of followers with 1.4 million and 723,800, respectively.
The Greens’ Elizabeth May has 281,800 followers on X, while the NDP’s Avi Lewis has 36,600.