Anti-LGBT+ MP faces boot from party after accepting donation from ‘well-known white supremacist’
Conservative MP Derek Sloan, who accepted a campaign donation from a notorious neo-Nazi. (Facebook/ Derek Sloan)
Canadian conservative leader Erin O’Toole is “outraged” after it emerged anti-LGBT+ MP Derek Sloan received a campaign donation from a “well-known” neo-Nazi.
The donation was first revealed by the Canadian non-profit news organisation PressProgress on Monday (18 January).
Through Elections Canada records, it found that the Conservative Party of Canada received a $131 donation in 2020 from neo-Nazi white supremacist Paul Fromm, who has links to multiple former Ku Klux Klan members.
The party’s communications director Cory Hann said that the donation was not to the party as a whole, but to the campaign of MP Derek Sloan, who ran for party leader in August last year. Sloan claims he was unaware of it.
Hann said: “Mr O’Toole is outraged that anyone would accept donations from this individual and will be looking into the matter.”
Fromm holds a leadership role in the Council of Conservative Citizens (CoCC), a racist, homophobic neo-Nazi group.
The organisation, which is the modern iteration of the White Citizens Councils, opposes “all efforts to mix the races of mankind”, “all sex education”, and “the presence of homosexuals and women in the military services”.
Its website states: “We believe in the traditional family as the basic unit of human society and morality, and we oppose all efforts by the state and other powers to weaken the structure of the American family through toleration of sexual licentiousness, homosexuality and other perversions, mixture of the races, pornography in all forms, and subversion of the authority of parents.”
Fromm used social media to promote Sloan’s leadership campaign last year, seeming especially drawn to the MPs’ efforts to block human rights legislation protecting trans and non-binary Canadians from discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes.
Sloan has also opposed efforts to ban conversion therapy for minors, claiming it will stop parents from speaking to their children.
Now, party leader O’Toole said in a statement that he has “initiated the process to remove Mr Sloan from the Conservative Party of Canada caucus”.
Racism has no place in the Conservative Party of Canada. My statement: pic.twitter.com/TP6uATWOi3
— Erin O'Toole (@erinotoole) January 18, 2021
He added: “Derek Sloan’s acceptance of a donation from a well-known white supremacist is far worse than a gross error of judgement or failure of due diligence… Racism is a disease of the soul, repugnant to our core values.
“It has no place in the Conservative Party of Canada. I won’t tolerate it.”
Sloan said in a statement: “I was unaware of this donation, as was my campaign team.
“We had over 13,000 donations and obviously did not closely scrutinise the donor names… When the problematic donation was brought to my attention, I immediately asked CPC executive director to refund the donation.”
