Toronto Mayor John Tory issued a statement Friday saying his reelection team will include people who share his values. The move comes just 13 hours after Nick Kouvalis publicly announced his resignation as the campaign manager for federal Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch.
Kouvalis, who played a major role in having Tory and Rob Ford elected as Toronto mayor, expressed his decision to step down from Leitch’s campaign team on a Facebook post Thursday.
“It has become clear that I have become a distraction to the campaign,” Kouvalis wrote. “When a member of a campaign team becomes the focus of media coverage, the time comes to resign.”
READ MORE: Nick Kouvalis resigns as Kellie Leitch’s campaign manager
Kouvalis’ resignation comes five days after he engaged in a tense exchange with University of Waterloo professor Emmett Macfarlane, in which he called the academic a “cuck.”
Tory said in a statement on Friday he rejected Kouvalis’ actions and that his future reelection campaign team will be run by people who share his values such as inclusion, acceptance, honesty, fair play, decency and respect.
“In that regard, anyone who wishes to be involved in my campaign, without exception, will have to satisfy me that their record and their approach are entirely consistent with my clearly understood values,” Tory stated.
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The Toronto mayor also quashed rumours he already has a campaign team up and running as municipal election rules forbid him 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,” he said.
Kouvalis attracted media attention last year for tweeting false information that the Liberal government had given international aid money to terrorist group Hamas. He later admitted he posted the comment “to make the left go nuts.”
Kouvalis also left Leitch’s campaign previously after he was charged with impaired driving in which he pleaded guilty and fined $1,690.
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-With a file from Jesse Ferreras
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