Ontario Liberals drop candidate under fire for comments about killing of Sikh leader [Video]

The Ontario Liberals have dropped a controversial candidate who was running for the party in a riding east of Toronto after days of pressure to act over a past social media post.

On Monday, the Progressive Conservatives unearthed a post from Liberal Oshawa candidate Viresh Bansal referring to the killing of a Sikh leader.

“You can thank India for cleaning trash people,” he wrote in a reply to a 2023 post from NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh. “Ask your gay friend @JustinTrudeau to do the same.”

The message was in response to a post about the killing of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, which Canada has said was linked to the Indian government.

Nijjar was a Canadian citizen, temple president and prominent leader of the Khalistan movement, which seeks independence for India’s Sikh-majority Punjab state.

After the post was discovered, Bansal apologized and said his words were “offensive and wrong.”

Even after the apology, Ontario …