Tory MPP candidate now backs gay rights
Conservative leader Brown says Parm Gill 100% supports Pride despite earlier remarks
Patrick Brown says his newest Progressive Conservative candidate — former Brampton MP Parm Gill — is now “100 per cent” for gay rights.
Gill was nominated Sunday to run in Milton against Liberal cabinet minister Indira Naidoo-Harris in next June’s provincial election.
He appears in a 2015 Punjabi Post YouTube video saying he entered federal politics because the prospect of same-sex marriage in Canada “pushed me over the edge.”
Gill also attacks Premier Kathleen Wynne’s updated sex-education curriculum in the 12-minute video, accusing her of trying to “shove this down, this ridiculous policy, down our throats” and calls parts of the lesson plans “disgusting.”
Brown defended Gill after speaking at a Pride flag-raising ceremony at Queen’s Park, telling a crowd of civil servants “it doesn’t matter who you love,” a line he repeats in PC television commercials airing lately.
“Parm Gill fully supports my direction, that we 100 per cent support Pride and equality and inclusion and gay rights,” said Brown, who served with Gill under former prime minister Stephen Harper.
“A lot of Canadians have had their opinions evolve on this.”
“You look at Dalton McGuinty, you look at Jean Chrétien. And if Parm had previous opinions, I’m glad that they have matured. I didn’t even realize he had a different position before.”
Gill, who represented the riding of Brampton—Springdale from 2011 until his defeat in the 2015 Justin Trudeau sweep, could not be reached for comment.
Environment and Climate Change Minister Glen Murray said the selection of Gill as a candidate is “a very clear signal that the Tories haven’t changed” and called on Brown to reject his nomination.
“I would imagine that Parm Gill is not going to be a candidate for the Conservatives because I can’t imagine he (Brown) would sign papers for someone who said . . . his major motivation for going into politics was because gay marriage, as he put it, was a step too far,” Murray, who is gay, said after the Pride flag event.
“If you could kick Jack MacLaren out of your caucus for saying something no less egregious than what Mr. Gill said, why would you bring someone into your caucus who said something so extraordinarily offensive?”