After a rocky week, the Liberals have found a new candidate for the Burnaby South byelection.
Former B.C. Liberal MLA Richard Lee will face off against federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh in the race, joining the party days after former candidate Karen Wang left the race over a controversial social media post.
Wang dropped out as the Liberal candidate on Wednesday after a Chinese-language post on WeChat appeared to urge voters to support her as the only candidate of Chinese origin and singled out Singh as being “of Indian origin.”
Lee served as MLA for Burnaby North for 16 years starting in 2001 before losing re-election in 2017. He served as deputy speaker in the legislature for the last two of those years, the first MLA of Asian descent to hold the role.
“I’m proud to call Burnaby my home, and this byelection is about ensuring Burnaby South has a strong voice in Parliament to help make life better for families in this community,” Lee said in a statement released Saturday.
“I’m looking forward to working with Justin Trudeau to keep making progress on Burnaby’s priorities, like investing in new affordable housing and better transit, creating good middle-class jobs, and protecting a healthy environment for our kids and grandkids.”
A day after resigning, Wang sent a request to the Liberal party asking to be brought back on as their candidate, claiming the message was misunderstood. She also tried to make her case to the media at an impromptu news conference in Burnaby on Thursday.
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The Liberal party rejected Wang’s plea and is now moving on with Lee as its candidate.
“The statement made by our former candidate in Burnaby South was unacceptable and not acceptable as the sort of politics I put forward,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. “That is why the individual is no longer a part of our team.”
WATCH: ‘I am not a racist’: former Liberal candidate Karen Wang holds emotional press conference
The message, first reported by the Toronto Star, was translated as reading: “If we can increase the voting rate, as the only Chinese candidate in this riding, if I can garner 16,000 votes I will easily win the byelection, control the election race and make history! My opponent in this byelection is the NDP candidate Singh of Indian descent!”
“Recently I have been labelled as a racist, which really, really makes me hurt,” Wang told reporters. “I am not a racist.
WATCH: Will former Liberal candidate Karen Wang run as an Independent?
“Chinese people, whenever you see the news about the candidate, news on Chinese media, they normally point to that he has a Chinese background and she has a Korean background, things like that,” Wang continued. “But Korean or Chinese background, it means Chinese Canadian or Korean Canadian.”