Face of Nation : Andrew Scheer says if a Conservative candidate has made racist or homophobic comments in the past he will stand by the candidate as long as they apologize and take responsibility for those comments.
Scheer denied the party is re-vetting candidates after Liberal party researchers discovered and published a trove of controversial social media posts made by Conservatives running in the fall election.
“As long as someone takes responsibility for what they’ve said, and addresses the fact that in 2019 some things that may have been said in the past are inappropriate today, that if anything that they’ve ever said in the past caused any type of hurt or disrespect to one community or another and have apologized for that, I accept that,” Scheer said to reporters during an overnight flight on his campaign plane from Ottawa to Vancouver.
“I accept the fact that people make mistakes in the past and can own up to that and accept that.” “I believe many Canadians, most Canadians, recognize that people can say things in the past, when they’re younger, at a different time in their life, that they would not say today.” “We’re very confident with the scrutiny that we went through, people who were hoping to run for our party,” Scheer said,
He also indicated he expects more of this type of campaign warfare as the election drags on — and that his party was already aware of some of his candidates’ controversial statements.
“In many cases we went through and we saw these and we, and the candidates, have take responsibility for that.” “Whether or not someone in the vetting process thought that Liberals would go back and look and see what someone said as a teenager and try to make an issue out of that…,” Scheer said when asked why the candidates in question were still approved to run for the party.
The apology acceptance plan is not a blanket policy though, and Scheer said there will be exceptions. “Obviously it depends on other aspects, including context.” “My point was, in the case of the candidates we’ve had issues with this week, people have right away expressed regret and taken responsibility.”
Scheer has been knocked off message by strategic attacks coming from the Liberal campaign, which has been taking specific aim at the candidates the Conservative leader has been appearing beside each day.
On Thursday, the Liberals published a video of Rachel Willson, the Conservative candidate from York-Centre in Toronto, espousing enthusiastic anti-abortion views.
When Scheer campaigned with Willson at a daycare that day, he was forced to restate that a Conservative government would not reopen the abortion issue. While Willson distanced herself from her prior comments, she did not say one way or the other whether she would bring forward an abortion bill if elected.
