When the Conservative Party of Canada fired Heather Leung as its candidate for Burnaby North-Seymour, the party’s statement included this howler: “There is no tolerance in the Conservative Party for those types of offensive comments.”
I’m calling BS on that one.
The videos that surfaced of Leung talking about people in the LGBTQ community being “perverted” and trying to “recruit” children, plus her support for “conversion therapy,” were what pushed the Conservatives to oust her as their candidate.
But it’s not like these comments were anything new. Leung has a long history of vile anti-LGBTQ views – she literally ran for school board to fight the Burnaby School District’s inclusionary policy aimed at stopping the bullying of LGBTQ students.
She broke the Conservative rule: don’t outright reveal your bigotry...veil it behind legislation and policy.
— Tania Cameron (@TaniaCameron) October 5, 2019
Leung also has some terrible views on abortion, including thinking that women who get pregnant after being raped should have to give birth. You can read about that here.
These things were not a secret. Most political parties heavily vet their candidates (no, not the People’s Party of Canada, which has a vetting process about as in depth as a Tinder profile), but it wouldn’t have taken more than an hour on the Internet to at least get clued in that Leung was a ticking political time-bomb.
No, the Conservatives knew her views and still approved her as a candidate, which says a lot about this political party and its views on social issues.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
