‘I don’t see why we should be guilty by association’
Hopefuls grant interviews to anti-Islam, pro-white ‘journalist’
Some federal Conservative leadership contenders have given interviews to a self-proclaimed online journalist who regularly posts accolades to the superiority of white people, along with diatribes against immigration in general and Muslims in particular.
Video of those largely anodyne interviews appear on Kevin J. Johnston’s YouTube channel, FreedomReport.ca, alongside more inflammatory video rants – including one in which Johnston warns Liberal MP Iqra Khalid, author of a motion condemning Islamophobia, that he’ll be there “with a big, fat smile” to film the moment when she’s shot by a “gun nut.”
The interviews – which also appear on the Mississauga Gazette website, billed as an “independent” news site owned by Johnston – illustrate both the potential and the pitfalls faced by politicians in the era of social media and socalled “citizen journalism.”
Johnston, for his part, said he believes most of the leadership hopefuls were well aware of his views when they agreed to speak to him.
“I think every MP and every MPP in this country knows who I am now,” he said in an interview. “I have made it very clear
that I want them to know who I am and I have sent off numerous letters of complaint to all of them ... So, yes, they all know who I am and I know that I’m on the RCMP watch list because the RCMP has already questioned two friends of mine about what my problem is.
“Those are the words they used.”
By Johnston’s count, he’s now interviewed seven Tory leadership contenders, although as of Wednesday he’d posted video of just five – Maxime Bernier, Michael Chong, Erin O’Toole, Pierre Lemieux and Brad Trost. With the exception of Bernier, who agreed to an hour-long phone interview, the others were videotaped for a few minutes following events featuring multiple leadership contestants.
Mike Patton, a spokesman for Trost’s campaign, said: “Mr. Trost does not vet the writings of reporters
prior to answering questions, and any suggestion that he shares the ideology of a reporter because he has answered their questions is misplaced.”
Bernier’s communications director, Maxime Hupe, said his campaign was unaware of Johnston’s views and the candidate certainly doesn’t condone his comments on Khalid, which were posted in mid-February, a month after Bernier spoke to Johnston.
“Maxime obviously does not want anyone to be shot and is against violence,” said Hupe, who arranged the interview with Johnston in the belief that the Mississauga Gazette was an online regional newspaper akin to one that operates in Bernier’s Quebec riding. “I don’t see why we should be guilty by association here. If Mr. Johnston said bad things in his journal, that’s his thing. That has nothing to do with Maxime.”