Ron Leech, the Wildrose candidate in Calgary-Greenway, said in a radio interview Sunday night that "as a Caucasian I have an advantage."
"When different community leaders such as a Sikh leader or a Muslim leader speaks they really speak to their own people in many ways," Leech said. "As a Caucasian, I believe that I can speak to all the community."
Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith, who had to defend one of her candidates on Monday for posting anti-gay views online, came to Leech's defence Tuesday, saying his comments are not cause for concern.
"I think that every candidate puts forward their best argument for why they should be the person who can best represent the community," Smith said at a campaign event.
Smith said she believes Leech made his comments to illustrate his ability to reach out to people from different backgrounds. She pointed out that Leech runs a private school that includes students from different cultural communities, and is also running in an ethnically diverse riding.
Leech is the second candidate that Smith has had to defend over inflammatory comments.
Over the weekend, blog posts written last year by candidate Allan Hunsperger in which he said that gays should be told they will suffer in hell caused an uproar in the election campaign.
"You will suffer the rest of eternity in the lake of fire, hell, a place of eternal suffering," Hunsperger said in the blog entry titled "Born this Way." The name was an apparent reference to the Lady Gaga song of the same name in which she calls for acceptance of everyone, regardless of their ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.
On Monday, Hunsperger, who is running in the Edmonton-Southwest riding, defended his right to his own personal religious views.
"I love people and everybody," he told reporters at a Wildrose gathering. "I have no intolerance about anybody but I do have a personal religious view."
On Sunday, he issued a statement saying that his views were expressed in his capacity as a church leader.
"I fully support equality for all people, and condemn any intolerance based on sexual orientation or any other personal characteristic."
Progressive Conservative Leader Alison Redford condemned Hunsperger's comments.
"If we have people like this, making these sorts of comments in Alberta, I think it's absolutely wrong," Redford said when asked about the post.
"The fact that these people think that's a legitimate perspective just absolutely blows my mind."
But Smith defended Hunsperger's right to his opinions.
"I believe in freedom of religion and I do believe that religious people do also have an opportunity and should run for political office," she said.
Despite the negative headlines being generated from the campaign, analyst Roger Gibbins of the Canada West Foundation said the electorate may not respond as expected.
"I suspect that the bad stories, and they are potentially damaging, are likely to reinforce the Conservatives' base, but not have that damning an impact on the middle part of the electorate the Wildrose are after," he told CTV's Power Play.
Given that the PCs have been in power for four decades, Gibbins said many Albertans are itching for a change and are looking at Wildrose as the party to bring it to the province.
"The critical vote, to my mind, are those people who are just saying to themselves ‘maybe a change would be refreshing.'"
However, while Wildrose is commanding a large amount of media attention, Gibbins said that it is still anybody's race to win.
"I don't know, you're talking to someone from Alberta that never sees political change, so this is all alien territory to me."
In the event of a Wildrose win, Gibbins doubted that the government would change much. But he said that the negative media attention from the election could alter perceptions about Alberta on the national stage.
"That's always problematic for a province that's trying to get an established voice on the national scene."
Original Article
Source: CTV
Author:CTVNews.ca Staff
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