Dear Editor,
I鈥檓 a moderate centrist who doesn鈥檛 really like any political parties. All parties have good ideas and bad ideas, good leaders and bad leaders, but partisanship doesn鈥檛 allow voters to recognize that. It demands they praise everything their party says and does while decrying everything every other party does.
But the many statements by Conservative candidate Aaron Gunn - defending residential schools, defending Putin, mocking LGBT rights, promoting Covid-19 conspiracy theories, to name only some of his comments - must be called out by all voters, regardless of party affiliation or non-affiliation.
The Conservatives had the opportunity to remove Mr. Gunn and replace him with a reasonable candidate who is not continually spreading bigotry, racism and hatred to his over 200,000 social media followers.
It is regrettable for our democracy that they did not do so. Politics should be a place where parties and candidates offer competing policies, not an arena for humanity鈥檚 basest instincts to be promoted for social media clicks and rage farming.
John Dacombe
Courtenay
