Dan Osborne. (CREDIT: Facebook)
A shake up in the federal election race in northern Nova Scotia ahead of voters casting their ballots on Monday.
The NDP has announced 18-year-old Dan Osborne has resigned as the candidate for Cumberland-Colchester amid backlash over an anti-Semitic Tweet in 2019.
Osborne apologized over the weekend saying he doesn’t remember making the post when he was 16-years-old asking if Auschwitz was a real place.
“I want to offer an apology,” he says. “The role of Auschwitz and the history of the Holocaust is one we should never forget. Antisemitism should be confronted and stopped.”
The Tweet refers to the Nazi-run concentration camp in Poland during the Second World War.
Hi @YaaraSaks I want to offer an apology. The role of Auschwitz and the history of the holocaust is one we should never forget. Antisemitism should be confronted and stopped. I can’t recall posting that, I was 16 then and can honestly say I did not mean to cause any harm.
— Dan Osborne (@danosbornens) September 12, 2021
NDP candidate Sidney Coles, who was running in Toronto-St. Paul’s, has also resigned and apologized over a Tweet. Reports say she posted misinformation about Israel being linked to missing COVID-19 vaccines in the United States.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Sing was asked about the resignations during a campaign stop in Ontario on Wednesday morning.
He says both candidates made the right move.
“I want to be very clear. Their comments were completely wrong and have no place in our party,” Singh says. “Antisemitism is real, we’re seeing a scary rise in antisemitism, and we are unequivocally opposed . . . Those messages were completely unacceptable and the right decision was made.”
They’ve both agreed to learn more about antisemitism.
Osborne’s name will remain on the ballot due to the late resignation. That leaves four people vying to win the seat.
Liberal candidate Lenore Zann took the riding in 2019 with 453 votes over the Conservatives.
She’s running against Stephen Ellis for the Conservatives, Jillian Foster for the Greens, and the PPC’s Bill Archer.
