A Conservative The candidate says he was referred by the party to the previous comments he made in a podcast suggesting the former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should face the death penalty.
Mark McKenzie, who was looking for a driving seat in Ontario in Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore, told Global News on Tuesday in an interview that the remarks he said in the co-hospital of a comedy podcast in 2022 were “a whole joke” and that he regrets doing them.
In the podcast, McKenzie also expressed his support for public hangings.
Mackenzie, who is a city councilor in Windsor, Ontario, said his comments had been released from their context, adding that he did not support them.
“My co-host at the time was not a big fan of Justin Trudeau, so we said joking about public hangings in other countries. It was a joke. It was a comedy podcast, right?” Said McKenzie.
He said he was disappointed to learn that the party no longer wanted him to be a candidate, but admitted that his remark “deactivated” was “with bad taste”.
“I received a call this morning from some party officials and they asked questions about the podcast. They said:” Well, do you remember it? And I said, “Well, yes, I said that.” And they said, “Have you disclosed it?” I said yes, he was disclosed.
“I said,” I don’t have somewhere where I can give you unless you want a hard drive with two and 300 audio concerts of my last 20 years, some of which you know we did not even have audio files when I got on the radio is still rolled up.
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McKenzie said he was a party call on Tuesday morning by asking for his podcast and the comments he made.
Shortly after, before saying that he had time to send them the audio files, McKenzie received another Top Party call in brass informing him that he was no longer the party candidate in driving, he said.
McKenzie alluded to his stay as a radio host for a radio station belonging to Bell, where he said he was encouraged to be “pissed off”.
McKenzie made the comments in his podcast, where he said that advertisers had encouraged him to take a similar tone.
“It was for a very controversial period of our country with locking and all that such,” he said.
“With hindsight now, I should not have said in particular public hangings and this type of thing,” said McKenzie, adding that he does not support the practice.
CTV News reported on Tuesday the deletion of Mackenzie after declaring that he had obtained the audio from the episode which was published in February 2022.
It was roughly when the so-called “convoy of freedom”, a protesting against the mandates of the COVVI-19 vaccine and other public health measures such as locking, had blocked the city center of Ottawa and border passages.
McKenzie said he hoped to speak with conservative leader Pierre Hairyvre to apologize, but said he hadn’t heard the party since morning.
He also declared that he offered apologies to Trudeau for his comments.
Global News contacted the Conservative Party to comment, but did not obtain an answer at the time of publication.
Controversy one day after Another federal candidate, Liberal Paul Chiang, announced He resigned as a candidate for the conduct of Markham-Unionville following comments he made in January that conservative Joe Tay should be given to Chinese officials in exchange for a bonus.
Carney had said before this decision that the remarks were “deeply offensive” but that Chiang “has my confidence”.
During a campaign stop at Edmonton on Tuesday, the chief of the NPD, Jagmeet Singh, was questioned about the controversies surrounding the liberal and conservative candidates.
He said that so far his party has not had similar circumstances.
“If things happen, however, we will make the best decision for our country, for our democracy, and we will therefore be ready to do so,” said Singh.
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