A Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) and party leadership candidate, Dr. Kellie Leitch, is being branded as a racist this week and partially blamed for last Sunday’s Quebec City mosque shooting because she insists new immigrants should adhere to Canadian values.
Protesters put a banner on Leitch’s constituency office with the names of the six people killed in the mosque murders and the messages, “Hate puts us all at risk,” and “#NotMyMP,” with a call for Leitch to resign.
Her staff called the Ontario Provincial Police early Wednesday after discovering the sign and signs of vandalism.
Leitch is standing firm in her convictions that prospective immigrants should be vetted for their opinions on matters that are vital to Canadian citizenship, such as women’s rights.
Talking to The Daily Caller on Thursday afternoon from her constituency office, Leitch said that “everything is back to normal,” but that the staff were still shaken up by the experience. She says she doesn’t understand what motivated the protesters but that “in Canada we embrace freedom of speech.” She suggests that her detractors “be better educated about what I’m saying and that they should go directly to the source to understand my position.”
The Labour Minister in the previous Conservative government calls her promotion of Canadian values “a common-sense approach” and bristles at the suggestion that it has any correlation with the mosque shooting. “Canadian values have absolutely nothing to do with that outrageous act of violence,” she says. “Our values are freedom and tolerance.”
The Ontario doctor is even under attack from some of her fellow Conservative MPs — especially those running against her in the party leadership campaign, where she is estimated to be in third place behind front-runner Kevin O’Leary.
Ontario MP Michael Chong has called the mosque shooting “no accident: It’s a direct result of demagogues and wannabe demagogues playing to fears and prejudices,” Chong tweeted.
His office has confirmed that he considers President Donald Trump the demagogue and Leitch the “wannabe” demagogue.
Another leadership candidate and former Labour Minister in the last Conservative government, Lisa Raitt, said Leitch is “fanning a flame” that will alienate voters in large urban centers.
“My concern about what Kellie says is it’s not going to allow us to have a really strong showing in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area), which is really made up of so many different cultures … it’s not a path that we can go down.”
Raitt is known as a Red Tory within the Conservative Party, or a RINO in U.S. conservative parlance.
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