Conservatives claim Liberal campaign in Oxford byelection was 'racist'
Tories say election signs that mention Brampton are a dog-whistle — Liberal says it's 'baloney'
Conservative campaign operatives are accusing the Liberal Party of running a "racist" campaign in the recent Oxford federal byelection, claiming slogans that highlighted winning Tory candidate Arpan Khanna's past ties to Brampton, Ont. are an example of dog-whistle politics.
In a letter posted on LinkedIn, Hamish Marshall, a long-time Conservative strategist and pollster who ran the party's 2019 federal election campaign, said the Oxford race was "the most disgusting, overtly racist campaign I've ever seen."
"I've been around politics for almost 30 years and yet the blatant hypocrisy of the Liberal Party of Canada still manages to shock me," he said, adding that Monday's closely fought byelection race was also the "nastiest" one he's ever witnessed.
Khanna, an Indo-Canadian, is a relatively new resident of Woodstock, Ont. who previously ran for the federal Conservatives in Brampton in 2019.
Marshall and others are pointing to signs that dotted the riding in the lead-up to Monday's vote as evidence of racism.
One sign spotted in the riding bore the slogan, "Dave is from Woodstock not Brampton," a reference to Liberal candidate David Hilderley's ties to the region as a former schoolteacher and real estate agent.
Other banners, which were attached to Hilderley's lawn signs, urged people to "vote local."
Another slogan used by Hilderley's team was, "From Oxford, for Oxford."
In his campaign literature, Khanna touted his education at the University of Western Ontario in neighbouring London to bolster his local credentials.
His tenuous ties to the region prompted claims that Khanna was a "parachute candidate," an outsider hand-picked by party leaders to run in a safe Conservative seat.
Marshall said Khanna, who won by a smaller margin than the last Conservative candidate in the 2021 federal election, is "the hardest working politician I know" and that drive secured him a victory despite the allegedly racially tinged messages he faced in the riding.
Jenni Byrne, a senior adviser to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, said Marshall's racism claims were a "precise analysis" of what went on in Oxford.
Sarah Fischer, director of communications for the Conservative Party, said in a statement to CBC News that Marshall's description of the Liberal strategy as "disgusting" and "racist" is "unfortunately accurate."
"To say that there were undertones of racism exhibited by the Liberal campaign would be painting the picture with too light of a brushstroke. It was overt and intentional. The signs, comments, ads and literature insinuating that the Conservative candidate was 'not one of us' were disgraceful. It brought Liberal campaigning to a new low that would likely shock many Liberal Party supporters," Fischer said.
"We are very proud of Arpan Khanna for the strong and respectable campaign he ran, despite the horrendous prejudice he had to deal with."
Brampton, a suburb of Toronto, is home to a large South Asian community. More than 50 per cent of the city's residents trace their ancestry to the Indian subcontinent.
Speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill, Hilderley, who was in Ottawa after his byelection loss for a Liberal caucus meeting Wednesday, called the racism claims "baloney."
"We actually ran a very, very good campaign. We had a very strong, super strong team. We had so much support from MPs close by," Hilderley said.
"It's pretty good when you can bring up the best results in the last 30 years for the Liberals. I'm thrilled we accomplished so much in Oxford County."
The Liberals, meanwhile, claim Poilievre's hard-right brand of politics is what alienated some traditional Conservative voters and nearly tipped the long-time Tory seat into the Liberal win column.
"Indeed, that claim is baloney," Azam Ishmael, national director of the Liberal Party of Canada, told CBC News when asked about Conservative racism claims.
"Pierre Poilievre parachuted his long-time friend into a riding that he thought would easily secure him a job in his caucus — a move that saw former CPC MP Dave MacKenzie endorse our Liberal candidate in this byelection.
"Clearly, this is a desperate attempt by Conservatives to distract from the fact that Canadians are rejecting Pierre Poilievre's reckless policies that would take Canada backward."
Khanna was running in a riding that is among the least racially diverse in the province — a largely rural area with smaller population centres like Woodstock and Tillsonburg.
According to the 2021 census, 90 per cent of the Oxford riding's residents are white English speakers. The second most commonly spoken language in Oxford is Dutch.
Since the last census, the riding has seen an influx of racially diverse newcomers, some of whom have settled in Woodstock, a manufacturing hub that's home to a number of automotive supply companies.
Khanna won 43 per cent of the vote compared to 36.2 per cent for Hilderley — a relatively tight race in a riding that has had a conservative-leaning MP for most of the past 70 years.
A Khanna campaign volunteer, who spoke to CBC News on the condition that they not be named, said the Liberal campaign was "just gross."
"I'm not adverse to some hard campaigning but it was unseemly. The only point of their campaign was, 'Arpan is not from here,'" the volunteer said.
"If it had been a white candidate from London, you wouldn't have seen this stuff. All of this talk about, 'We don't want Brampton politics in Oxford,' it was barely a dog-whistle."
The Conservative Party's nomination race for the seat was a contested one — and talk of Khanna's Brampton ties started there first.
Outgoing MP Dave MacKenzie endorsed his daughter, local councillor Deb Tait, to succeed him as the Conservative candidate in the race.
Tait has alleged dirty tricks by party headquarters secured the nomination for Khanna, who served as Poilievre's Ontario campaign co-chair. The party denies Tait's claim.
MacKenzie and Tait ended up endorsing Hilderley.
"We've been here for over 50 years and all that time I've known [Hilderley] he's been a good, strong, honest man with principles," MacKenzie told CBC News at the Liberal byelection night watch party.
"He's been very active in the community. I'm just one that believes it's about the community. I don't think you can drop in someone from 100 kilometres away and have the community's interest at heart — no matter what they tell you."
Catherine Agar and Brian Kaufman, the Conservative Party's Oxford riding association president and vice-president respectively, resigned after Khanna's nomination.
In a letter announcing her resignation, obtained by the London Free-Press, Agar said the nomination was "full of problems" and the party's rules were "repeatedly ignored."
"It is my personal opinion that the Oxford nomination was hijacked by people from Ottawa and Brampton who crafted a win for Mr. Khanna with a small sample of the Oxford Conservative membership," she said.
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