OTTAWA – Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff lost a Quebec candidate Wednesday after revelations that Andre Forbes had called Aboriginal people "featherheads" and suggested they were poor workers who received too much money and too many land rights from the state.
The announcement came on a day when both the Liberals and Conservatives were under fire for remarks made by candidates or behaviour on the campaign.
"As soon as I was apprised of past comments made by the Liberal candidate in Manicouagan, Andre Forbes, I immediately asked my staff to inquire about their validity," Ignatieff said in a statement.
"As a result, Mr. Forbes has been informed that he is no longer a candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada. Mr. Forbes’ comments have no place within the Liberal Party of Canada," Ignatieff said.
Forbes, who is Metis, founded an association called the "Rights of Whites" and made a series of allegedly racist comments which came back to haunt him after the NDP brought them to light.
"We all know that the aboriginals will not keep their jobs . . . I have worked for many years for Gulf Paper of Clarke City, which closed in 1968. Many Montagnais worked there. I only remember one who did a good job," Forbes is quoted as saying in Le Soleil newspaper in March, 2002.
Clarke City is a town located near the St. Lawrence River, about 1,500 kilometres northeast of Montreal.
According to the NDP, another organization Forbes’ ran, Metis Cote-Nord, also suggested in a letter to Hydro-Quebec in January 2009 that: "If our Metis community was formed of Muslims, homosexuals or of an association of elderly ladies making moccasins out of caribou skin, would Hydro-Quebec consult with us? Yes."
When Postmedia News reached Forbes’ campaign office in Sept-Iles, Que., Christian Turgeon, an official with Metis Cote-Nord who signed the Hydro-Quebec letter, said Forbes only created the "Rights of Whites" organization to attract media attention to the plight of Metis people in the area, who felt excluded from negotiations between the government and the Innu.
Even then, Turgeon said he was surprised Forbes, a well-known Metis advocate, would have said anything racist because the Metis and Innu lived closely together.
"For me, that is my brother-in-law and my sister-in-law, that’s my family," Turgeon said.
The ex-candidate was stuck in a snowstorm on the lower North Shore near Labrador and couldn’t be reached for comment, Turgeon said.
Forbes wasn’t the only candidate to land in hot water Wednesday.
In a short excerpt from a YouTube video, Chris Alexander, Canada’s former ambassador to Afghanistan and the Conservatives’ star candidate in the Toronto-area riding of Ajax-Pickering, told an audience in March he believes Canada has eliminated poverty in this country – at least by the levels the World Bank recognizes.
"We don’t have that type of poverty in Canada, we have low-income," Alexander said in the video.
"You’re lying," an older woman interjected on the video, which was circulating Wednesday by the Liberals in an attempt to suggest the candidate was out of touch with reality.
Alexander told Postmedia the clip was taken out of context, and that he was trying to suggest poverty in Afghanistan is much deeper than inequalities in Canada.
Conservative leader Stephen Harper, who was expected in Ajax Wednesday evening where Alexander is up for a tough fight against the Liberal incumbent Mark Holland, was also on the defensive Wednesday.
Harper sidestepped questions about whether the Conservatives are monitoring Facebook and other social media sites to weed out individuals who aren’t considered true-blue Conservatives when they attend Tory rallies.
Harper declined to elaborate on an incident in London, Ont., in which two students were ejected from a Conservative rally after one of them had her picture taken with Ignatieff. Instead, he suggested the Tories had to turn people away from their ridings because too many were showing up.
"I think it’s better when you’re turning people away than when you can’t get people to come out," Harper told reporters at an auto-parts plant in Markham, Ont.
The controversies overshadowed campaign pronouncements from the leaders Wednesday. For example, Harper was in the Toronto area courting new immigrants by announcing $50 million over two years for loans meant to help newcomers upgrade their skills so their foreign credentials could be recognized in Canada;
Ignatieff was in Quebec, trumpeting a plan to bring high-speed Internet access to all of Canada’s regions within three years. He also re-announced a pledge to forgive part of student loans for doctors and nurses who choose to practise in underserviced and rural areas.
In Ottawa, party officials held a draw to determine podium placements, dress room locations and one-on-one opportunities for the English and French language televised debates slated for April 12 (English) and April 14 (French). As part of the structure of those debates, Harper and Ignatieff will have two six-minute opportunities to debate each other one-on-one.
Green party leader Elizabeth May is still excluded from the debate. On Thursday, she is scheduled to release her election platform. May also plans a whistle-stop tour aboard a Via train Friday travelling from Toronto to Montreal.
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