Memramcook-Tantramar candidate Heather Collins has been dropped from the People’s Alliance party due to an anti-Muslim social media post, but will continue to run as an independent candidate in Monday’s election.
Collins says she received a call from one of the party’s founders, Sterling Wright, to say they had to pull her as a candidate because of something that came to their attention.
Reporters at the CBC discovered two tweets written and posted online by Collins in June 2019 that complained about Muslims immigrating to Canada.
One tweet read, “That’s all they seem to be letting into Canada at this time,” in reference to Muslims. The tweet also called the situation “sickening.”
Another tweet from the same day reads along the same lines.
Collins says she does not plan to apologize for the tweets, as she doesn’t feel they were disrespectful. She says she “has friends that are Muslim” and is “not against helping anyone.”
She says the statements were made while campaigning for a family that had spent 12 years trying to get an adopted child into Canada. She specified the family in question was Canadian.
She did not explain how her frustration with the immigration system on behalf of another family led her to call the immigration of Muslims into Canada, “sickening.”
Collins will remain on the ballot for Memramcook-Tantramar listed under the People’s Alliance, but if elected, would sit as an independent.
