Why Parties Ramped Up Candidate Purges Last week and Why a Surge of Attacks May Be Coming

(Right) Liberal Leader Mark Carney; (Left) Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick; Adrian Wyld

Last week saw the Conservatives drop five candidates over comments they had made in the past, while three Liberal candidates were dismissed or resigned for the same reason.

The dismissals took place ahead of the April 7 deadline for candidates to register to run in the federal election.

If parties find past comments from candidates that may be problematic to their campaign and want to drop them, they will be unable to register replacements after April 7.

They will then need to either drop the candidate and have no one running in that particular riding, or keep the candidate at the risk of drawing attacks by other parties and negative headlines.

However, there could also be a barrage of attacks by other parties against various candidates after the April 7 deadline. Parties may already be aware of past comments they deem problematic by some rival candidates, and plan to make them public once there’s no chance to replace the candidate, thereby gaining an edge.

Turfed Liberal Candidates

The first high-profile exit of a candidate in the current election was that of incumbent Toronto-area Liberal MP Paul Chiang, who had suggested in January that his Conservative rival, a Hong Kong democracy activist, be handed over to Chinese officials for a bounty.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney condemned Chiang’s comments, but said he would remain as a candidate. As the issue continued to make headlines and it came to light that the RCMP was investigating Chiang’s comments, the Liberal candidate announced his resignation on March 31.

Just prior to Chiang’s exit, the Liberals confirmed on March 29 that they had dropped real estate broker Thomas Keeper as their candidate for Calgary Confederation. Keeper reportedly had an undisclosed domestic assault charge in 2005 that was stayed by the courts.

On April 4, the Liberals also dropped former longtime Alberta NDP MLA Rod Loyola, who had said in 2009 that organizations like “Hezbollah and Hamas really are trying to stand up for their people.”

Turfed Conservative Candidates

The Conservatives dropped three candidates on April 1.

Mark McKenzie, a city councillor in Windsor, Ont., was dropped for jokingly suggesting that former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should receive the death penalty during a podcast segment in 2022.

Stefan Marquis, the Conservative candidate for Montreal’s Laurier-Sainte-Marie riding, said on April 1 that he was dropped from the party due to past social media comments, without elaborating on what the comments were.

The Tories also dropped Lourence Singh from the B.C. riding of Westminster-Burnaby-Maillardville on April 1 without disclosing the reason. A report by Glacier media said that in past comments, Singh had said that China had “found the right balance” when it comes to governance and free markets, and that China’s forced education camps for Uyghurs was meant to “educate people not to have radical views.” Singh didn’t respond to a request for comment, and has appealed his ouster.

A day later on April 2, the Conservatives dropped candidate Don Patel from the Etobicoke North riding for “endorsing” a social media comment that suggested certain unidentified persons be deported to India where the government would “take care” of them. Patel had reacted to that comment with a “care” emoji.

On April 4, the Conservatives removed Simon Payette, a candidate in the Quebec riding of Berthier-Maskinongé, who had said Liberal candidate Nathalie Provost, a survivor of the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre, was using her “cause to evoke pity.”

Conservative Candidates Under Scrutiny

There are several other Conservative candidates who have been under media scrutiny and who may be targeted further by opposition parties.

Some media, including CTV and CBC, have been focusing on Andrew Lawton, a media personality who is running as a Conservative candidate in the London, Ont., riding of Elgin-St. Thomas-London South.

Citing a report by Press Progress, the media arm of the Broadbent Institute founded by former NDP Leader Ed Broadbent, CTV said in an April 4 report that Lawton was an “active member in a group chat involving many high profile convoy members.”

Lawton was the author of the 2022 book “The Freedom Convoy: The Inside Story of Three Weeks that Shook the World,” and the Conservatives say that as a journalist Lawton communicated with a variety of sources.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is demanding that the Conservatives drop documentary filmmaker Aaron Gunn, a Conservative candidate for B.C.’s North Island-Powell River. Singh made the comment on social media after posting a CBC article headlined “First Nations leaders in B.C. call for Conservatives to drop candidate Aaron Gunn.” The article cites past comments by Gunn that indigenous people didn’t face a genocide in Canada, and that “residential schools were asked for by Indigenous bands.”

In 2021, Gunn ran for the leadership of the then-B.C. Liberal Party, at the time the right-leaning party in the province, but was disqualified. Gunn said it was because he “committed the ‘unforgivable sin’ of refusing to call Canada a genocidal state on 3 separate occasions over twitter.”

Gunn went on to revive the Conservative Party of B.C., which was later led by ousted B.C. Liberal Party MLA John Rustad, and became the Official Opposition after last year’s election.

In response to the current scrutiny, Gunn said on a social media post on April 3 that he has “always been firm in recognizing the truly horrific events that transpired in residential schools, and any attempt to suggest otherwise is simply false.”

“We must acknowledge the terrible mistakes of our past and learn from our history while celebrating Canada as the greatest country on earth,” he said.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has also been asked by reporters about Bryan Paterson, the Tory candidate in Kingston and the Islands. While in Kingston, Ont., on April 3, Poilievre was asked by a reporter how his party’s vetting process “extends to Mr. Paterson for his previous connection to a church that supported conversion therapy.”

Poilievre said Paterson has renounced conversion therapy in the past.

“You omitted from your question that Mr. Paterson renounced conversion therapy years ago and so the question is not accurate,” Poilievre said.