Liberals call on Horgan to fire Courtenay-Comox NDP candidate

CHEK

BC Liberals uncover 2013 Ronna-Rae Leonard Facebook post the party says “compares police to Nazis” and calls on party leader John Horgan to fire her. Dean Stoltz reports.

 
Liberal party leader Christy Clark used a helicopter hanger in Campbell River on Monday as a backdrop to say small businesses like it are benefiting from a strong Island economy.
 
“An example of how you don’t build things by saying no,” Clark told supporters during the morning campaign stop. “When we say yes to forestry, when we say yes to economic growth we say yes to businesses like E & B Helicopters.”
 
Dallas Smith is the Liberal candidate for the North Island.
 
He’s touted as a respected indigenous leader and it could be the First Nation vote that takes the riding away from 12-year NDP MLA Claire Trevena.
 
“I worked with two previous NDP premiers in my previous career and never got any revenue sharing agreements done,” Smith told CHEK News. “It was under this government that they understood the certainty that comes with First Nations relationships.”
 
Christy Clark’s campaign rolled into Comox where she and another political newcomer, candidate Jim Benninger, made their way through an Easter Monday egg hunt at a local park. 
 
It’s Benninger’s main rival, NDP candidate Ronna Rae Leonard, who came under Liberal fire today for sharing a Facebook post in 2013 that the Liberals say equates police officers with Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.
 
The Liberals also accused Leonard of supporting anti-Israeli activism after she invited people to support Haneen Zoubi, a noted anti-Israeli politician according to the Liberal news release.
 
“It certainly shows poor judgement on the part of the candidate,” Benninger says. “I think that’s an error in judgement and I would expect her to take that back and apologize for that.”
 
Within a few hours, the Liberals were calling on NDP leader John Horgan to fire Ronna Rae Leonard.
 
“Well, the Liberals will make a lot of claims and I am certainly happy to apologize on this issue,” Leonard told CHEK News. “I’m feeling confident that I have the confidence of the leader of the BC NDP and I’m just anxious to get back to the work at hand which is working to create a better B.C.”
 
Christy Clark campaigned in Parksville-Qualicum and Nanaimo Monday afternoon. 

Dean StoltzDean Stoltz

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