Ousted candidate says Liberals knew about social media posts well before sacking him

Instead, he said, he was contacted by the party and given one hour to make a choice: resign for personal reasons, or be removed as candidate.

Guillet said his social media posts were public, and the party knew or should have known about them when they first approached him to run for them in 2017.

“One is entitled to ask the question: Is it incompetence, or bad faith?” he said at a news conference, where he was flanked by his wife and supporters from different cultural communities.

Guillet questioned why the party decided to turn on him over “facts that have been known for over two years” after repeatedly expressing support in private.

“All the party officials I met confirmed to me they were convinced I was not racist or anti-Semitic,” he said. “They told me that they were simply afraid of the media.”

The former imam said he still wants to run in October’s federal election as a Liberal but doesn’t rule out running for another party or as an Independent if he’s not reinstated.

Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith said last Friday it had uncovered “a pattern of disturbing anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements” made by the candidate on social media that have since been removed.

In one of the comments, dated July 8, 2017, Guillet welcomed the release from prison of Raed Salah, whom the Jewish group described as a militant close to Hamas, which Canada lists as a terror group.

Guillet congratulated Salah on being freed from a “prison of occupied Palestine,” and prayed that he would one day succeed in liberating “all of Palestine.” He described Salah as a “resistance fighter” and a “jihadist.”

The Jewish group also found a since-deleted Facebook post from 2016, allegedly from Guillet, where he wrote “the Zionists control American politics.”

Guillet said Wednesday that he’d praised Salah’s release from prison because he had protested the closure of a Jerusalem mosque. He said he hadn’t been aware of other allegations against him. He declined to discuss his stance on Israel, saying it wasn’t relevant to his role as a future MP.

He repeatedly insisted he was neither racist nor anti-Semitic.

“On the contrary, I campaigned and will always campaign against all forms of racism, including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism,” he said.

Guillet, an engineer and former lawyer, became well-known in Quebec after he gave an emotional sermon at the funeral of worshippers murdered at a Quebec City mosque in 2017. At that time, he referred to the killer, who murdered six men, as a victim — which earned him worldwide praise. J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, called his words “extraordinary and humane.”

But on Wednesday following the news conference, two Jewish organizations declared themselves unsatisfied with Guillet’s explanations.

“We are troubled that Mr. Guillet defended his previous statements in celebration of the release of an Islamist leader with ties to Hamas who repeatedly incited violence against Israelis and engaged in anti-Semitic blood libels against Jews,” said David Ouellette, director of research and public affairs at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

B’nai Brith Canada also said they rejected Guillet’s “excuses,” saying he hadn’t apologized or clarified many of his statements.

The Liberal Party of Canada did not respond to a request for clarification on when it had learned of Guillet’s posts, or why it chose to remove him when it did.

A spokesman for the party said only that Guillet had been removed as candidate following an “internal review,” and that the decision was final.

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Ousted candidate says Liberals knew about social media posts well before sacking him

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