Conservative campaign operatives are accusing the Liberal Party of running a “racist” campaign in the recent Oxford federal byelection, claiming slogans that highlighted winning Tory candidate Arpan Khanna’s past ties to Brampton, Ont. are an example of dog-whistle politics.
In a letter posted on LinkedIn, Hamish Marshall, a long-time Conservative strategist and pollster who ran the party’s 2019 federal election campaign, said the Oxford race was “the most disgusting, overtly racist campaign I’ve ever seen.”
“I’ve been around politics for almost 30 years and yet the blatant hypocrisy of the Liberal Party of Canada still manages to shock me,” he said, adding that Monday’s closely fought byelection race was also the “nastiest” one he’s ever witnessed.
Khanna, an Indo-Canadian, is a relatively new resident of Woodstock, Ont. who previously ran for the federal Conservatives in Brampton in 2019.
Marshall and others are pointing to signs that dotted the riding in the lead-up to Monday’s vote as evidence of racism.
One sign spotted in the riding bore the slogan, “Dave is from Woodstock not Brampton,” a reference to Liberal candidate David Hilderley’s ties to the region as a former schoolteacher and real estate agent.
Other banners, which were attached to Hilderley’s lawn signs, urged people to “vote local.”
Another slogan used by Hilderley’s team was, “From Oxford, for Oxford.”
In his campaign literature, Khanna touted his education at the University of Western Ontario in neighbouring London to bolster his local credentials.
His tenuous ties to the region prompted claims that Khanna was a “parachute candidate,” an outsider hand-picked by party leaders to run in a safe Conservative seat.
A sign saying ‘Dave is from Woodstock, not Brampton’ stands next to a Liberal election sign during the Oxford federal byelection. Conservative MP-elect Arpan Khanna previously ran for the party in Brampton, Ont. in 2019. (Supplied by Hamish Marshall)
Marshall said Khanna, who won by a smaller margin than the last Conservative candidate in the 2021 federal election, is “the hardest working politician I know” and that drive secured him a victory despite the allegedly racially tinged messages he faced in the riding.
Jenni Byrne, a senior adviser to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, said Marshall’s racism claims were a “precise analysis” of what went on in Oxford.
Sarah Fischer, director of communications for the Conservative Party, said in a statement to CBC News that Marshall’s description of the Liberal strategy as “disgusting” and “racist” is “unfortunately accurate.”
“To say that there were undertones of racism exhibited by the Liberal campaign would be painting the picture with too light of a brushstroke. It was overt and intentional. The signs, comments, ads and literature insinuating that the Conservative candidate was ‘not one of us’ were disgraceful. It brought Liberal campaigning to a new low that would likely shock many Liberal Party supporters,” Fischer said.
“We are very proud of Arpan Khanna for the strong and respectable campaign he ran, despite the horrendous prejudice he had to deal with.”
Liberal candidate David Hilderley’s team used the slogan ‘From Oxford, for Oxford’ in some of their campaign material. (David Hilderley/Facebook)
Brampton, a suburb of Toronto, is home to a large South Asian community. More than 50 per cent of the city’s residents trace their ancestry to the Indian subcontinent.
Speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill, Hilderley, who was in Ottawa after his byelection loss for a Liberal caucus meeting Wednesday, called the racism claims “baloney.”
“We actually ran a very, very good campaign. We had a very strong, super strong team. We had so much support from MPs close by,” Hilderley said.
“It’s pretty good when you can bring up the best results in the last 30 years for the Liberals. I’m thrilled we accomplished so much in Oxford County.”
Liberal candidate David Hilderley calls Tory claims of a racist campaign ‘baloney’
Asked by reporters about his campaign, Hilderley denied the claims and said he ran a ‘very strong’ campaign.
The Liberals, meanwhile, claim Poilievre’s hard-right brand of politics is what alienated some traditional Conservative voters and nearly tipped the long-time Tory seat into the Liberal win column.
“Indeed, that claim is baloney,” Azam Ishmael, national director of the Liberal Party of Canada, told CBC News when asked about Conservative racism claims.
“Pierre Poilievre parachuted his long-time friend into a riding that he thought would easily secure him a job in his caucus — a move that saw former CPC MP Dave MacKenzie endorse our Liberal candidate in this byelection.
“Clearly, this is a desperate attempt by Conservatives to distract from the fact that Canadians are rejecting Pierre Poilievre’s reckless policies that would take Canada backward.”
Conservative Arpan Khanna, left, Liberal David Hilderley, centre, and New Democrat Cody Groat, right, ran in the southern Ontario riding of Oxford in a federal byelection. (arpankhanna.ca, davidhilderley.liberal.ca, oxfordndp.ca)
Khanna was running in a riding that is among the least racially diverse in the province — a largely rural area with smaller population centres like Woodstock and Tillsonburg.
According to the 2021 census, 90 per cent of the Oxford riding’s residents are white English speakers. The second most commonly spoken language in Oxford is Dutch.
Since the last census, the riding has seen an influx of racially diverse newcomers, some of whom have settled in Woodstock, a manufacturing hub that’s home to a number of automotive supply companies.
Khanna won 43 per cent of the vote compared to 36.2 per cent for Hilderley — a relatively tight race in a riding that has had a conservative-leaning MP for most of the past 70 years.
A Khanna campaign volunteer, who spoke to CBC News on the condition that they not be named, said the Liberal campaign was “just gross.”
“I’m not adverse to some hard campaigning but it was unseemly. The only point of their campaign was, ‘Arpan is not from here,'” the volunteer said.
“If it had been a white candidate from London, you wouldn’t have seen this stuff. All of this talk about, ‘We don’t want Brampton politics in Oxford,’ it was barely a dog-whistle.”
Conservative candidate Arpan Khanna at his victory party in the southwestern Ontario riding of Oxford. (Isha Bhargava/CBC News)
The Conservative Party’s nomination race for the seat was a contested one — and talk of Khanna’s Brampton ties started there first.
Outgoing MP Dave MacKenzie endorsed his daughter, local councillor Deb Tait, to succeed him as the Conservative candidate in the race.
Tait has alleged dirty tricks by party headquarters secured the nomination for Khanna, who served as Poilievre’s Ontario campaign co-chair. The party denies Tait’s claim.
MacKenzie and Tait ended up endorsing Hilderley.
“We’ve been here for over 50 years and all that time I’ve known [Hilderley] he’s been a good, strong, honest man with principles,” MacKenzie told CBC News at the Liberal byelection night watch party.
“He’s been very active in the community. I’m just one that believes it’s about the community. I don’t think you can drop in someone from 100 kilometres away and have the community’s interest at heart — no matter what they tell you.”
Catherine Agar and Brian Kaufman, the Conservative Party’s Oxford riding association president and vice-president respectively, resigned after Khanna’s nomination.
In a letter announcing her resignation, obtained by the London Free-Press, Agar said the nomination was “full of problems” and the party’s rules were “repeatedly ignored.”
“It is my personal opinion that the Oxford nomination was hijacked by people from Ottawa and Brampton who crafted a win for Mr. Khanna with a small sample of the Oxford Conservative membership,” she said.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
