Racist slurs taint Canadian election campaign

Jane Armstrong:

In B.C.'s Surrey-Newton riding, where more than half the residents are visible minorities including both leading candidates, the issue of race has vaulted to the top of the agenda in the waning days of the campaign.

The discovery on the weekend of racist pamphlets apparently aimed at Liberal candidate Daniel Igali, an Olympic gold medalist, has touched off a wave of heated accusations between Mr. Igali and his New Democratic opponent Harry Bains.

The leaflets, which popped up on Saturday, have the words "don't vote ugly black" over Mr. Igali's picture and "vote pretty brown" under Mr. Bains's, who is Indo-Canadian.

Mr. Igali, who came to Canada from Nigeria in 1996, spent Saturday condemning the leaflets and hoped to put the issue to rest.

"I just dismissed them and told everyone to discard them and told them it was the work of somebody with a sick mind," Mr. Igali said.

"I just pray to God that He forgives anyone who still has that kind of mindset in the 21st century. Especially in the kind of riding we live in, where it's a multicultural riding with a lot of visible minorities -- and a lot of the candidates running are visible minorities too."

He also hoped his NDP rival would condemn the pamphlets and publicly distance the party from the offensive material.

Instead, the two rivals launched a bitter back-and-forth, with each candidate accusing the other camp of using dirty tactics in the tightly contested suburban Vancouver riding.

Mr. Bains's campaign responded by denouncing the offensive leaflets, but suggested they could be the work of Liberals.

"It's an act of desperation," Mr. Bains said yesterday. "You have to ask yourself: 'Who is this going to help? Who is this going to hurt?'

"It is going to hurt my campaign. An attempt is being made to help someone other than me. Who would do that?"

Mr. Bains did not accuse the Liberals by name of distributing the pamphlets, but said he believed they were the work of desperate people "from other camps."

And he pulled out an anecdote from the campaign which left little doubt as to whom he believes is making mischief.

While knocking on doors in Surrey a few weeks ago, Mr. Bains said, a woman told him a caller who identified herself as a Liberal phoned to ask whether she was supporting Mr. Igali. When the resident said no, the caller asked whether that was because Mr. Igali is black. The resident was offended by the comment and told Mr. Bains. Mr. Bains said then that he was prepared to stay silent about the incident -- until the pamphlets dropped.

"Now, when this kind of stuff is coming out, it seems to me to be strategically designed that way," he said.

B.C. election 'more boring than most': poll

NDP using racist tactics? Isn't that a "conservative" thing?

Igali falls in B.C. election