Tory leadership hopefuls grant interviews to anti-Islam, pro-white ‘journalist’
OTTAWA — Some federal Conservative leadership contenders have given interviews to a self-proclaimed online journalist who regularly posts accolades to the superiority of white people, along with diatribes against immigration in general and Muslims in particular.
Video of those largely anodyne interviews appear on Kevin J. Johnston’s YouTube channel, FreedomReport.ca, alongside more inflammatory video rants — including one in which Johnston warns Liberal MP Iqra Khalid, author of a motion condemning Islamophobia, that he’ll be there “with a big, fat smile” to film the moment when she’s shot by a “gun nut.”
The interviews — which also appear on the Mississauga Gazette website, billed as an “independent” news site owned by Johnston — illustrate both the potential and the pitfalls faced by politicians in the era of social media and so-called “citizen journalism.”
Johnston, for his part, said he believes most of the leadership hopefuls were well aware of his views when they agreed to speak to him.