Kenney urged to act after LGBT flag compared to swastika
LITTLE BUFFALO, Alta. — Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says if Opposition Leader Jason Kenney of the United Conservatives is serious about eradicating extremist views in his party, he can start with a member who compared the LGBTQ flag to the swastika.
“Mr. [John] Carpay has been very clear on his views, and I would expect Mr. Kenney to act accordingly, and we look forward to seeing him do that,” Notley said Tuesday.
“If Mr. Kenney wants to convince Albertans that they should not be worried about the long-term agenda of the UCP, then he needs to demonstrate it by suggesting that Mr. Carpay doesn’t have a home in that party.”
Carpay is a United Conservative party member who also heads the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, an advocacy group that is challenging in court an Alberta law enacted under Notley that allows gay-straight alliances in schools if students wish to have them.
On the weekend, Kenney and others from across the political spectrum denounced comments made by Carpay in a speech he made that warned of the threat to individual freedoms posed by totalitarian regimes.
“You’ve got to think about the common characteristics,” Carpay said in the speech. “It doesn’t matter whether it is a hammer and sickle for communism or whether it’s the swastika for Nazi Germany or whether it’s a rainbow flag — the underlying thing is a hostility towards individual freedoms.”
Neither Carpay nor Kenney could be reached for an interview Tuesday. Kenney has not said whether Carpay will be allowed to retain his membership.
Carpay apologized in a statement Sunday for drawing the comparison, calling it unintentional.
“Past attempts to enforce utopian ideals have often failed badly,” he said.
“We must always take care that, in our latterday attempts to perfect the rights of any historically wronged community, we not trammel the rights of others.”
Notley said Carpay “doubled down” on his original comments.
“The notion there’s a similarity between people who promote the rights of the LGBTQ community — as they would any other minority group through a civil rights lens — with somehow being oppressive of the right to free speech is an outrageous opinion,” she said.