Kellie Leitch’s Campaign Probably Didn’t Change the Eye Colour on This Photo

Dear god, the debate over this Liberal motion condemning Islamophobia is driving people insane.

Apparently Jordan Peterson is now reciting amateur slam poetry about the Prophet Mohamed, The Rebel is rambling on about Sharia law, and Kellie Leitch's campaign has casually photoshopped an image of the Parliament Hill shooting into an ad for her petition against M-103.

All this right-wing hand-wringing seems pretty over-the-top, considering the motion itself asks to "recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear, condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism," and "collect data to contextualize hate crime reports."

This seems to have spawned somewhat of a game among media and pundits: who can spot the most racist/dumb dog whistle?

As fun and terrifying as this may be, one of these ensuing controversies brought up by iPolitics earlier today may not be worth getting upset about. The story questions whether the Leitch campaign changed the eye colour of a model with "M-103" duct tape over her mouth.

"Most versions of the stock image available online… appear to show a young girl with brown eyes," reads the story. "It's not clear whether Leitch's people were the ones to change the model's eye colour or whether they used a [sic] image that was already altered."

Sure, a close inspection of Leitch's image shows the eye colour is an obvious Photoshop job. The colour filter leaves a tiny crescent of brown along the bottom edge of the left eye, and there's a few strands of hair in front of it which have also been turned blue.

On Twitter, some people have asked Leitch why the eye colour has been changed. Could it be a salute to her Aryan-race-loving followers?

I reached out to the Leitch campaign, and so far haven't heard back. But I think I can put most of this mystery to rest on my own.

A reverse image search on TinEye brings back over 900 versions of this image. Hundreds of them have been edited with different colours, backgrounds, text over the mouth, lens flare, makeup, and yes, different eye colours.

A version of the photo on a Spanish stock photo site from last year appears to have the same eye filter as the one applied to the Leitch image. Several dozen more versions seem to have the exact same filter applied, stretching back to 2013.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the eye filter was probably added long before Leitch's design team ever got their hands on it. But that Parliament Hill shooting in the background? That's still on them.

Follow Sarah Berman on Twitter.