Conservatives Drop Two Candidates in One Day Over Past Comments

The Conservatives removed two candidates on April 1 citing concerns about public comments they previously made. The candidates were from Ontario and Quebec.

Conservative candidate Mark McKenzie in the southwestern Ontario riding of Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore is no longer running for the party over comments he made in a comedy podcast in 2022.

In the podcast, he expressed support for the death penalty, and jokingly suggested former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should receive it, according to an audio first obtained by CTV News.

“I’m also in favour of public hangings. … I think they should bring back the electric chair as well. But again, only if you’re like a million percent positive … that guy is a murderer. A Paul Bernardo, you know what I mean, Charles Manson, people like that, Jeffrey Dahmer … Epsteins, this is what I’m saying—Justin Trudeau,” he said while laughing, telling the host, “You like how I threw Trudeau in there too, right?”

The Conservative Party disapproved of McKenzie’s remarks after they resurfaced on April 1. An early federal election has been triggered for April 28.

​​“The comments are clearly unacceptable,” a Conservative campaign spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an April 1 statement. “Mr. McKenzie will not be the Conservative candidate.”

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The Epoch Times sought comment from McKenzie but did not hear back by publication time. However, in an April 1 interview with radio station AM800, McKenzie called his removal “disappointing.”

He said he was “joking” when referring to Trudeau, and maintained his stance on the need for “harsher penalties” for serious criminals.

McKenzie, a former radio broadcaster in Windsor, Ont., currently serves as a councillor for the city’s Ward 4.

That same day, Stefan Marquis, the Conservative candidate for Montreal’s Laurier—Sainte-Marie riding, announced on social media platform X that he had been removed from the party due to past posts on the platform.

“In a call received this morning from one of Quebec’s operations managers for the party, I was told without further note that ‘certain’ individuals within the party had consulted my recent posts on Twitter-X and deemed these sufficient reason to end our political collaboration,” Marquis wrote in an April 1 post.

“The call lasted less than a minute. Consequently, I also requested that the party remove any and all public and internal communications linking me to it.”

Marquis did not specify which posts the party took issue with, but he said the party had reviewed his X account before his nomination on March 27. He said the Party, “by its own volition,” had removed a “devoted ally willing to operate in a proven complicated political landscape.”

Chiang suggested that his then-Conservative rival in the Ontario riding of Markham—Unionville, Joe Tay, be turned over to the Chinese consulate to collect a bounty. Tay, a Canadian citizen, is one of the democracy activists targeted by Hong Kong authorities, who have issued an international bounty on him and several other activists.

After the comments resurfaced recently, Chiang issued an apology, calling his comments “deplorable and a complete lapse of judgement.”

Liberal Leader Mark Carney faced calls from both the Conservatives and the NDP, as well as Hong Kong democracy groups, to remove Chiang as a candidate.

Carney rejected the calls, saying that while Chiang had a “terrible lapse in judgment,” the candidate acknowledged his mistake.

“He’s made his apology; he made it to the public, he made it to the individual concerned, made it directly to me, and he’s going to continue with this candidacy,” Carney said during a March 31 campaign event in Vaughan, Ont.

Chiang’s resignation came late on March 31. He said he was stepping aside because he didn’t “want there to be distractions” during what he called a “uniquely important election with so much at stake for Canadians.”

Noé Chartier contributed to this report.