OUSTED LIBERAL CANDIDATE SAYS PARTY KNEW OF OLD POSTS.
MONTREAL •A federal Liberal candidate blocked from running in a Montreal riding last week over controversial social media posts said Wednesday the party was aware of the posts and had been working with him to head off negative publicity before they abruptly turfed him.
Hassan Guillet told reporters he met officials with the federal party on Aug. 8 to discuss the old posts, and the Liberals reassured him they were convinced he was neither racist nor anti-semitic.
But the party revoked his nomination in the Saintleonard-saint-michel riding last Friday after a Jewish advocacy group unearthed a series of old statements he made on social media that they described as anti-israel and anti-semitic.
He said he and the Liberals had already discussed an action plan that involved outreach to the media and the Jewish community in order to counter any bad press. Guillet says that action plan was to be set in motion the day he was sacked. Instead, he said, he was contacted by the party and given one hour to make a choice: resign for personal reasons, or be removed as candidate.
Guillet said his social media posts were public, and the party knew or should have known about them when they first approached him to run for them in 2017.
The former imam said he still wants to run in October’s federal election as a Liberal but doesn’t rule out running for another party or as an Independent if he’s not reinstated.
Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith said last Friday it had uncovered “a pattern of disturbing anti-semitic and anti-israel statements” made by the candidate on social media that have since been removed.
In one of the comments, dated July 8, 2017, Guillet welcomed the release from prison of Raed Salah, whom the Jewish group described as a militant close to Hamas.
Guillet congratulated Salah on being freed from a “prison of occupied Palestine,” and prayed that he would one day succeed in liberating “all of Palestine.” He described Salah as a “resistance fighter” and a “jihadist.”
Guillet said Wednesday that he’d praised Salah’s release from prison because he had protested the closure of a Jerusalem mosque.
“We are troubled that Mr. Guillet defended his previous statements in celebration of the release of an Islamist leader with ties to Hamas who repeatedly incited violence against Israelis and engaged in anti-semitic blood libels against Jews,” said David Ouellette, director of research and public affairs at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
The Liberal Party of Canada did not respond to a request for clarification on when it had learned of Guillet’s posts, or why it chose to remove him when it did.
A spokesman for the party said only that Guillet had been removed as candidate following an “internal review,” and that the decision was final.