Horwath ‘looking into’ alleged sharing of Hitler meme
Andrea Horwath says she finds it hard to believe Riaz would post the meme. PC’s accuse NDP candidate Tasleem Riaz of posting image on her Facebook page years ago
An NDP candidate accused by the Progressive Conservatives of putting a Hitler meme on her Facebook page five years ago says she has no idea how it got there.
The Conservatives called on New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath to take “immediate action” Friday against Tasleem Riaz in Scarborough-Agincourt, where she is running against incumbent Liberal Soo Wong in the June 7 election. Tory MPPs Gila Martow and Todd Smith — whose leader Doug Ford has refused to fire candidate Andrew Lawton in London West over Islamophobic and misogynist views — flagged the 2013 post by Riaz and another one two years earlier accusing Canadian soldiers of war crimes in Afghanistan.
“You don’t post this kind of thing by accident,” Martow said.
“When Ontarians pull back the curtains and reveal the true NDP it’s clear that they won’t like what they see,” she charged, a reference to what the Conser- vatives say are several Horwath candidates with “views well outside the Canadian mainstream.”
Horwath said she finds it hard to believe Riaz, an interfaith activist, would post anything associated with Adolf Hitler.
The meme pictures the former dictator giving his trademark Nazi salute to a crowd over the words “if you don’t like a rule … change the rule.”
“That’s not something that I would support,” Horwath said outside a Scarborough high school. “I’m looking into this.” “I’ve known Tasleem for some time now,” she added, outside of Sir Oliver Mowat Collegiate Institute, highlighting her promise of $16 billion to fix a backlog of repairs in schools. “She’s been an activist in interfaith issues.”
Riaz issued a statement saying she is “horrified that an inappropriate meme was on my Facebook page. I don’t recall sharing it in 2013 — and at no point in my life would I have done so intentionally.”
“I have devoted my life to interfaith religious tolerance and freedom,” she added. “I find Hitler, the hate he spewed and the genocide he committed to be abhorrent.
“I can’t understand how this happened, and I’m devastated that it has.”