Tory hedges on working with Kouvalis
Mayor refuses to rule out working with controversial campaign strategist
Mayor John Tory is refusing to rule out working with controversial campaign strategist Nick Kouvalis on his 2018 re-election campaign.
On Friday morning, just hours after Kouvalis resigned as campaign manger of Kellie Leitch’s Conservative party leadership bid following a week of controversy, Tory once again said he rejected Kouvalis’s recent statements but stopped short of denouncing the pollster.
“Prior to this decision by Mr. Kouvalis, I had clearly expressed to him my complete rejection of his actions in connection with the Leitch campaign,” Tory said in a statement emailed to reporters Friday morning. “As for speculation about my future campaign team, let me be clear: I do not have a campaign team. I am forbidden by law from having one. My focus is on my job as mayor and I won’t be making decisions about who will play roles in my campaign organization for many more months.”
Sources have told the Star that while the municipal campaign has yet to officially kick off, informal discussions with the mayor have been ongoing. On Thursday, sources said Kouvalis was also stepping away from Tory’s re-election campaign and that of British Columbia Premier Christy Clark.
Tory reiterated Friday that his next campaign will employ people who “share my values, which include: inclusion and acceptance, honesty, fair play, decency and respect.”
Tory has faced repeated criticism for not clearly distancing himself from the strategist, whom he credits with helping him win the 2014 mayoral election after years of political defeat.
Last weekend, Kouvalis tweeted at and then apologized for calling a political science professor a “cuck” — the derogatory term used by the “altright” and white supremacists to insult their opponents.
In December, facing specific questions about Kouvalis’s role in the Leitch campaign — which has been accused of fear mongering for pitching vetting of immigrants, refugees and visitors for “anti-Canadian values” — Tory praised the strategist, calling him “one of the smartest people I have available to me,” the National Post reported.
He also told the Post’s editorial board he hoped Kouvalis would return to help run his 2018 campaign.
Ahead of an unrelated announcement Friday, the Star’s David Rider asked Tory how he could possibly find common ground with someone who used that kind of language.
Tory said: “I would sooner lose an election than adopt any approach like that that divided people or was inconsistent with the values that throughout my entire career, in and out of politics, I have promoted and adopted and embraced.”
Tory said that as a “friend” of Kouvalis, who has struggled with alcohol addiction, “I owe it to him to give him a chance to deal with his personal issues.”
In his statement Thursday, Kouvalis said it has become clear to him “that the pressures that come with a stressful campaign leadership role are not conducive to my personal well-being.”
“I’ve indicated that I completely reject the approaches that have been taken in the course of this campaign he’s just resigned from,” Tory said, adding his ties to Kouvalis have been overstated.
“I talk to him once in a while, as you talk to people that you come across in this process,” he said, noting that Kouvalis is not on staff.
Kouvalis’s campaign tactics became mainstream when he led the “gravy train” rhetoric that saw Rob Ford elected mayor of Toronto in 2010.
Thursday was the second time Kouvalis has left the helm of Leitch’s campaign. Last year, he quit after being charged with impaired driving. The Star reported last May that he had pleaded guilty and was fined $1,690.
In a statement, Leitch said she had accepted Kouvalis’s decision to quit, but praised his effect on her campaign.
“I understand and respect Nick’s decision to focus on his family and well-being,” Leitch said.
Leitch said her national co-chairs, former Senator Con Di Nino, Dany Renauld and Sander Grieve, would manage the day-to-day operations on an interim basis.
“We have a strong campaign and team, thanks to Nick’s efforts,” she said.
Leitch’s positions have drawn public criticism and private grumbling from other Conservative MPs who worried that her divisive campaign to win the leadership would turn off the broad base of Canadians the party needs to win the election.
Kouvalis said last month that he posted false information about the governing Liberals in an effort to draw out left-leaning voters.
Last year, Kouvalis tweeted a list of “billions” of dollars Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government had supposedly given to international aid organizations in the previous year, including $351 million for the designated terrorist group Hamas.
He later said the information was false, telling Maclean’s magazine that he posted it “to make the left go nuts.”