The furor continues over a plethora of past social media posts and online appearances by B.C. Conservative candidate Brent Chapman, currently running for MLA for Surrey South.
B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad – who has previously said he accepted Rustad's apologies for anti-Muslim posts – acknowledged Monday he found posts by Chapman to be "offensive" and "wrong."
But he declined any further comment, noting that Chapman has retained legal advice.
Rustad was commenting prior to the revelation of another meme reposted in the past by Chapman, which emerged Tuesday.
Published following the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president in 2016 the graphic offered a diagram instructing "liberals" on the correct method for committing suicide.
Meanwhile, Chapman himself took to social media platform X to note that he will not be commenting further.
"Following advice from legal counsel I will no longer be commenting on this matter or any other matter related to social media posts from years ago," he said in a post on Monday (Oct. 14).
Chapman was responding specifically to a social media post he made in February of 2017, made public on Saturday, in which he seemed to throw doubt on accounts of several mass shootings.
These include the Quebec City Mosque shooting, in which six people died and five others were seriously wounded, as well as the Orlando, Fla. nightclub shooting of 2016 in which 49 people were killed and 53 were wounded, and the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown Conn. in which 20 children and six adult staff died.
"They all have sketchy stories that change drastically from initial events (then all fall into the same narrative...)," he commented in the original post, adding that "they all seem to mysteriously connect to a current political debate...Usually it's gun control, removing the Confederate flag, immigration, foreign wars etc."
His original post suggested accounts were framed "to use emotion and hysteria to effect seeping change on fundamental rights", and questioned why CCTV footage of the mosque shooting had not been released and why initial reports of multiple shooters at the mosque, in Orlando and at a 2012 Aurora, Col. theatre shooting (12 killed, 70 injured) had since been ignored by police and "the legacy media."
"I really hope no-one was actually killed at any of these events, but in the Orlando night club shooting, the people that talked to the press were not actually shot," he posted.
In his Monday post, however, Chapman said that all of the events to which he had referred were "very real mass shootings" in which innocent people lost their lives "and we should all mourn these tragedies."
"What I was trying to say," he explained, "is the whirlwind of US media and commentary makes everything chaotic and confusing to people watching the TV. People's understanding of what's going on changes from moment to moment and it's all just so difficult to understand."
But NDP Premier David Eby was, predictably, having none of this.
Commenting Monday at an election stop in Surrey, Eby said Chapman's posts on the mass shootings were tantamount to suggesting the incidents were hoaxes.
"This comes following a number of other disgusting and appalling racist social media posts from the same individual," he said.
"These are real people that were killed, their families reeling...in that moment of grief and reckoning to have somebody from our province that's seeking public office to be saying that what they were experiencing wasn't real – that it was made up to advance gun control political arguments – is one of the most awful things I think I've heard.
"I am continually disgusted by the depths that we've seen from Conservative candidates in their social media postings, and this, somehow, is the worst," Eby said.
"And I'm worried about saying that, because I'm worried what will come out tomorrow. It is far past time for (B.C. Conservative leader) John Rustad to remove this candidate."
Eby also said that while Rustad was "attempting to change the channel" Monday by announcing a potential new children's hospital in Surrey, "there is only one thing people want to hear about from you, John Rustad and that's that you have removed this hateful individual as a candidate."
Rustad, questioned about the latest revelations of Chapman media posts, was not slow to criticize their content.
"Mr Chapman, from what I have read from this, came out with a number of posts that, quite frankly, I find offensive, that are wrong," he said.
"They don't reflect the values for myself personally and they don't reflect the values for us as a Conservative party," he said, while acknowledging Chapman's current response to the mass shooting posts.
"He has also retained legal advice," Rustad noted.
"That being the case, it would be inappropriate for me to say more about Mr. Chapman."
Peace Arch News has reached out to Chapman multiple times for comment, but he has not returned calls. Chapman's team had promised a statement last week, but no such statement has been provided as of this publication.
