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.
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After the post was discovered, Bansal apologized and said his words were “offensive and wrong.”
Even after the apology, Ontario …