Poilievre, Brown trade accusations in response to Buffalo, N.Y. mass shooting
Leadership candidates and the interim leader of the Conservative Party are condemning the racist “white replacement theory” that allegedly inspired Saturday’s mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y. But there is still discord in the party about how that condemnation came about — with Pierre Poilievre accusing leadership rival Patrick Brown of a “sleazy” use of an atrocity and with Brown’s campaign questioning why Poilievre and other Conservatives didn’t condemn the killings sooner. It’s been a particularly ugly moment in an already heated leadership race.
“It shouldn’t take us time to come out and emphatically stand up for what’s right,” said Michelle Rempel Garner, co-chair of Brown’s leadership campaign. “Those moments of hesitation, frankly, I think they’re very detrimental to Canada’s pluralism. I just think our party needs to do a better job of immediately condemning this type of murderous ideology.” Saturday’s shooting left 10 people dead and has been described by authorities as “racially motivated violent extremism.” Most of the people killed were Black and the 18-year-old shooter reportedly left a lengthy manifesto espousing the idea that whites were being replaced by non-whites — a racist conspiracy theory known as “white replacement theory.”
Brown prompts Poilievre
Disagreement among Conservatives sparked by the deaths went public on Sunday when Brown tweeted out a 2019 video of Pat King, one of the key figures behind the protest convoy that occupied downtown Ottawa in February. In it, King discusses the idea that white people are being deliberately replaced…
Source:cbc.ca
Tuesday, May 5, 2026
