The Conservatives will not have a candidate in the Quebec City riding of Québec-Centre this federal election due to issues that arose during the application process of candidate Chanie Thériault.
“Unfortunately, there was an issue in the candidate’s submission of paperwork. As such, Ms. Thériault will not appear on the ballot,” the Conservative Party said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
Thériault’s candidacy was originally announced by the Conservative Party on April 3. The nomination deadline for the federal election was 2 p.m. on April 7.
The Liberal Party has held the riding of Québec-Centre since 2015. It has most recently been represented by former Liberal cabinet minister Jean-Yves Duclos, who is seeking re-election for a fourth term. A Conservative MP has not been elected to the riding for more than 30 years.
Candidates Dropping Out or Being Removed
Several candidates in the Liberal and Conservative parties have not been allowed to run in the federal election or have dropped out. Incumbent Liberal MP Paul Chiang announced he was dropping out of the election race on March 31 after facing backlash for his comment that his Conservative opponent should be taken to the Chinese Consulate so a bounty could be collected. Liberal Leader Mark Carney had rejected calls to remove Chiang from the ballot, saying he had a “terrible lapse of judgment” but that the party still had confidence in him.
The Liberal Party also dropped Rod Loyola as a candidate in Edmonton on April 4 after a video surfaced in which he appears to be praising Hezbollah and Hamas at a 2009 anti-NATO protest. Loyola acknowledged in a statement he had made comments about Hezbollah and Hamas but went on to condemn the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.
The Liberals also dropped Thomas Keeper as their candidate for Calgary Confederation. Keeper reportedly had an undisclosed domestic assault charge in 2005 that was stayed by the courts.
Conservative candidate Lourence Singh was removed from the slate on April 1 because of comments he made about the Chinese regime in a podcast four years ago. The same day, Conservative candidate Stefan Marquis was removed from the ballot due to unspecified recent posts he made on the X platform.
Mark McKenzie, a city councillor and former radio personality in Windsor, was also told on April 1 that he would not be running for the Tories in the federal election campaign because of past comments he made about former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. McKenzie had expressed support for public hangings and jokingly said Trudeau should receive the death penalty during a podcast episode in 2022.
Tories also dropped candidate Don Patel from the Etobicoke North riding on April 2. The campaign said the reason for dropping Patel was due to him “endorsing” a social media comment that suggested certain unidentified persons be deported to India where the government would “take care” of them.
On April 4, the Conservatives removed candidate Simon Payette in the Quebec riding of Berthier-Maskinongé. Payette had said that Liberal candidate Nathalie Provost, a survivor of the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre, was using her “cause to evoke pity.”
