Conservative Party blocks controversial candidate Richard Décarie from running for leadership

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a man wearing a suit and tie smiling at the camera: Richard Decarie, a social conservative whose views were widely condemned by some senior Conservatives, has been barred from running the party's leadership race.

OTTAWA — The Conservative Party has released a “final list” of candidates approved to run in the leadership race, and Richard Décarie is not on it.

Décarie had prompted outrage last month after he went on national TV and said that in his view being gay is a choice, among other inflammatory remarks. His comments were strongly condemned by many Conservative MPs and leadership candidates including Peter MacKay, Erin O’Toole, Marilyn Gladu and Rick Peterson.

The Conservative Party’s leadership nomination committee interviewed Décarie on Thursday, which indicates he had fulfilled everything else needed to enter the race, including a $25,000 fee and 1,000 signatures from party members. (To stay on until the final ballot, he would have needed to pay a further $275,000 and collect 2,000 more signatures by March 25.)

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Décarie’s campaign team told the Post on Friday that they had met the basic entry requirements and expected Décarie would be approved to run.

“No reasons were provided to me by the committee,” said a statement from Décarie on Saturday. “It seems, then, that my candidacy was viewed as a threat to the establishment of the CPC and to the kind of leader that THEY want to select. Thus far I was the only candidate who took a strong position in support of traditional marriage and who proposed to defund abortion federally since it is not health care.”

Party spokesperson Cory Hann would not confirm on Saturday why Décarie was not on the final list of applicants, saying that reasons for approving or disqualifying a candidate aren’t released. Hann did say that the final list has been signed off on by the full leadership election organizing committee (LEOC).

A party official with direct knowledge of the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the rejection was not specific to Décarie’s TV interview, but related to his application as a whole. The application includes a lengthy questionnaire and various screening measures such as background checks and scanning social media feeds, previous activities and written work.

The official also pointed out that other socially-conservative candidates (Leslyn Lewis and Derek Sloan) are in the race, so the party is not looking to block people with those views.

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According to the leadership race rules, there is no further route of appeal for Décarie now that the entry deadline of Feb. 27 has passed.

“All decisions of the LEOC are final and are not subject to internal appeal or judicial review,” the rules say.

© Darren Calabrese A man is silhouetted walking past a Conservative Party logo before the opening of the Party’s national convention in Halifax on Thursday, August 23, 2018. The leadership questionnaire that had to be filled out by all candidates did include questions that could have formed the grounds to block Décarie , such as whether the candidate has ever “been accused of, or been engaged in, activities that promote discrimination or hatred against people on the basis of…sexual orientation.”

Décarie’s statement said his supporters, who he called “True Blue Conservatives” with “traditional values,” will still be a force in the party and this leadership race.

“They will continue to be with or without my candidacy in this particular leadership contest,” he said. “I will continue to work with all True Blue conservatives who want to support and take action in the conservative movement, and within the Conservative Party of Canada regardless of how uncomfortable this makes the unelected Red Tory elite.”

The list of eight candidates approved to run are:

Marilyn Gladu

Rudy Husny

Jim Karahalios

Leslyn Lewis

Peter MacKay

Erin O’Toole

Rick Peterson

Derek Sloan

Back when he was seeking the leadership of the Conservative Party, Andrew Scheer said he’d cut federal funding to any university that did not actively promote and defend free speech on campus. Bully for him! We applauded him, We noted how tyrannical Justin Trudeau is with his caucus. No dissent on abortion is allowed. All elected Liberals must bark the pro-abortion line or be expelled from the caucus or denied a nomination. No wonder Trudeau is such an admirer, like his father before bhim, of Red China,

Sadly, it didn’t take Andrew Scheer long to change his tune. Lynn Beyak is a feisty senator from Northern Ontario. Last year she begged to dissent from the “residential schools were racist hell holes” politically correct line. That’s part of the Indians good, Whites bad, party line where any Indian shortcomings are blamed on White people, colonialism or Jacques Cartier. She pointed out that many of the poorly paid teachers who tried to give Indian youngsters an education were well meaning and did much good. For that, she was roundly denounced and her own party kicked her off the Aboriginal Affairs Committee.

However, Beyak received many letters from Canadians with on-the-ground experience who knew that the Ottawa White guilt narrative was largely nonsense. She did what so seldom happens: She gave Canadians a voice. She published their letters on her website.

Andrew Scheer demanded that she take one of those letters down. She refused. And now she’s out of the caucus.

The National Post (January 4, 2018) picks up the story: “ Sen. Lynn Beyak, who famously declared “some good” came out of Canada’s residential schools, was removed from the Conservative Party caucus after refusing to remove a “racist” comment from her website, Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer said Thursday . Scheer said in a statement that he had learned on Tuesday that Beyak had posted approximately 100 letters from Canadians in support of her position on residential schools to her Parliamentary website. He said the vast majority of letters focused on the history of residential schools, while others contained comments about Indigenous Canadians in general. The Conservative leader said he had asked Beyak to remove one of the letters that suggested Indigenous People want to get things for “no effort” and she refused, resulting in her removal from caucus. ‘Promoting this comment is offensive and unacceptable for a Conservative Parliamentarian. To suggest that Indigenous Canadians are lazy compared to other Canadians, is simply racist,’ he said.” What’s “racist” about that? The only valid question is whether it’s true or not. While there are many hardworking Indians, for whatever reason, anyone with Northern experience knows there are also many Indians with a poor work ethic. The point is: The comment is an OPINION. It’s debatable. It should not be banned..

One reason this country’s political elite of ALL parties is so out of touch with Canadians is there is a whole range of issues that cannot be mentioned. Suggest that the residential schools were an imperfect but well meaning attempt to bring a Stone Age people into the modern work and it’s: “You shut up!” Suggest that there may be something wrong with an immigration policy which will replace, ethnically cleanse, Canada’s European founding/settler people by 2050, if it’s not changed quickly, and again it’s: “You shut up!”

But Scheer was almost a moderate beside the Red Guard vehemence of NDP MP Charlie Angus who wants the Prime Minister to find a way to kick her out of the Senate. In “tolerant” Canada, some views just cannot be tolerated by the virtue signallers of political correctness: “Sen. Lynn Beyak — newly turfed from the Conservative caucus — is fundamentally unfit to represent the Canadian people, NDP MP Charlie Angus said Friday as he urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to use his influence to get her removed from the upper chamber once and for all. In a letter to Trudeau following Beyak’s ouster late Thursday, Angus asks the prime minister to reach out to the independent and Liberal members of the Senate, among others, to convince them to ‘use the tools of the Senate’ to finally put an end to what he calls an “egregious abuse of public office.” (CANADIAN PRESS, Januaryy 5, 2018)’ .

So, giving voice to a politically incorrect OPINION is “an egregious abuse of public office” and anti-democratic!

CAFE

Dedicated to Free Speech, Immigration Reform, and Restoring Political Sanity

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Conservative Party blocks controversial candidate Richard Décarie from running for leadership

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