Bonnie Crombie blames PCs for poorly vetted Ontario Liberal candidates

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OTTAWA — As the Ontario Liberals struggle under a pile of candidates with questionable social media posts, their leader is blaming Doug Ford’s snap election call for her party’s inability to vet candidates.

When pressed on the issue during a Monday campaign stop in Ottawa, Bonnie Crombie blamed the inordinate number of contentious candidates on PC Leader Ford.

“Here we have a snap election in the shortest and coldest month of the year — obviously the PCs are well prepared for this undertaking, and even notwithstanding they have a majority government who could have been governing until June 2026,” she said.

“I’m very proud of our slate of candidates, they’re representative of their communities — they’re all strong business and community leaders right across this province.”

This comes days after Crombie dropped Oshawa candidate Viresh Bansal over social media posts regarding the 2023 assassination of B.C. Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar — comments that had community groups and even fellow Liberal candidates calling for his ouster.

Bansal drew ire for a 2023 reply to a tweet from federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh over Nijjar’s killing where he wrote, “You can thank India for cleaning trash people. Ask your gay friend @justintrudeau to do the same.”

Crombie said that even though Bansal issued an apology, the decision was still made to drop him.

“That individual’s comments do not reflect my values or the values of the Ontario Liberal Party, and were completely unacceptable,” she said.

Among those flanking Crombie during Monday’s presser was Ottawa-Centre Candidate Thomas Simpson, whose campaign was cast under a cloud over a series of misogynistic and problematic tweets posted over a decade ago.

These include “Consent is not sexy #success” tweet posted in 2012, and a 2011 tweet where he declares a love of sexual intercourse with “ginger midgets that smell like rotten bananas.”

A website created by the Ontario PCs features a wide array of problematic tweets by Liberal candidates, including several expressing dissatisfaction with Crombie leading the party.

“Bonnie makes me want to vote for another party,” tweeted Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry candidate Devon Monkhouse in 2023, a sentiment shared by Northumberland-Peterborough South’s Dorothy Noronha, who wrote, “If this is a party that chooses Bonnie, I guess it’s not my party anymore.”

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
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