Community Protests Controversial Conservative Party Candidate

Canadian Anti-Hate Network

Source: Andrew Lawton/X

A crowd of 200 community members in London, Ontario, rallied against a candidate in the upcoming federal election who they feel does not represent their values, or their community. 

Andrew Lawton, a conservative media figure running in Elgin–St. Thomas–London South has long been a controversial figure in Ontario politics and media.

They added that Lawton’s “problematic history with Islamophobia, racism, homophobia, and misogyny” was also a concern. 

Lawton was recently revealed by PressProgress to be part of a self-described “clandestine” group chat with organizers of the Freedom Convoy—three days before the April 7 cut off for the Conservatives to replace their candidate on the ballot. The chat also included the organizers’ lawyers, content creators, and people from within Canada’s far-right.

Formed during the inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act to end the 2022 Freedom Convoy blockade protests, the Signal chat group “Canada Freedom Rights Movement” included over 50 names associated with the Freedom Convoy. 

Admins for the chat were a former Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms lawyer and representative for the convoy leaders at the Emergencies Act Inquiry, Eva Chipiuk, and self-described white nationalist who volunteered as the convoy’s “stage manager,” Bethan Nodwell.

Others in the chat included Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich, Chris Barber and Tom Marazzo, as well as reporters for Western Standard, Rebel Media, and True North — Lawton previously hosted a streaming show on Rebel and took a leave of absence in 2024 from his job as managing editor for True North. 

Lawton reportedly did not respond to PressProgress’ requests for comment, but did post a statement to social media after the article was published. 

“As a journalist covering the Public Order Emergency Commission, I was part of a group to connect with sources and share my work,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “I authored the only journalistic account of the Freedom Convoy, which was cited in evidence by the Commission itself as a factual account of the protests.

“I left the group after the commission hearings ended.”

Patterns

Lawton has been a right-wing commentator and pundit for over a decade. He is also Pierre Poilievre’s biographer, having recently written a book about the Conservative leader’s life.

"Including Islamophobic, antisemitic, homophobic, misogynistic and anti-Indigenous commentary, Mr. Lawton has consistently demonstrated conduct fundamentally incompatible with the values of a democratic and inclusive society, especially in London, " Hikma Public Affairs Council, a London, Ontario, Muslim advocacy group said in a statement to CBC. 

This is not Lawton’s first foray into electoral politics. In 2018, he ran as a handpicked candidate for Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party. Similar to his current federal run, the campaign drew attention as many of Lawton’s past commentaries came back to haunt him. 

A blog titled “Strictly Right,” exposed in a report by North 99, appears to have been run by Lawton, displaying his picture and username as the site’s sole author. 

In a 2009 post, titled “The Fake Holiday,” Lawton bemoans the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women — meant to commemorate a brutal shooting at Polytechnique school in Quebec on December 6, 1989. 

“All of the victims were women, meaning that this day of remembrance is a prime opportunity for feminazis to accuse anyone who doesn't take the day (December 6) off work and hold a candlelight vigil of being anti-woman,” an archive of the post reads. 

The same blog has posts blaming gay sex and political correctness for the prevalence of AIDS and calls to reopen the debate around abortion. 

Several articles have been published detailing Lawton’s more bizarre and offensive social media usage.

Lawton responded on Facebook to a poll that found homophobia was a concern for the London, Ontario, 2SLGBTQ+ community, writing that the “Number of sexual orientation-motivated hate crimes in Canada per year: 185. Number of HIV/AIDS infections from men (who) have sex with men in Canada per year: 1,450.” 

“Who is the real enemy?”

He previously cited his “struggles with mental illness” as a reason for his behaviour between the years 2005 and 2013.

https://www.twitter.com/AndrewLawton/status/993589280688652288

In 2016, Lawton penned a column for the Toronto Sun commemorating a decade since the publication of America Alone by Mark Steyn—who Lawton has also interviewed. The book predicts the decline of US freedom in part due to migration from Muslim countries.

“America Alone predicted that Western civilization wouldn’t survive the 21st century,” Lawton writes. “Given that we’re only 16 years into it, it stands to reason that Steyn may have overestimated the timeframe.”

The same year, on episodes of his podcast on Rebel News, Lawton argued racial and gender discrimination should be legal in workplaces, that German women “deserve” to be raped because of Germany’s refugee policies, and told white nationalist Faith Goldy that women’s equity was resulting in a “pussification” of Western society.

Northern Exposure

The Conservative Party of Canada has chosen to run other candidates who have expressed controversial positions. Liberals have accused the Conservative leader of pushing policies that would bring them in line with Trump’s Republicans. 

These include votes by Conservative delegates to add policies during the party convention that included prohibiting “life-altering medicinal or surgical interventions" and barring young people from gender affirming care. Comments by Poilievre about "radical gender ideology" and “woke ideology” echo the rhetoric being used by politicians who have taken steps to roll back rights for equity-seeking groups in places like the United States and Hungary. 

Lawton is not the only candidate whose past comments have generated controversy. 

North Island–Powell River candidate Aaron Gunn is facing calls for his removal from the CPC ticket for previous comments about residential schools and what has been officially recognized by the government of Canada by unanimous vote, and Pope Francis, as genocides of Indigenous peoples.

An independent filmmaker and content creator, Gunn wrote in a post on the social media platform X, that “There was no genocide. Stop lying to people and read a book. The Holocaust was a genocide. Get off Twitter and learn more about the world.”

A petition calling for Gunn’s removal has gained 10,000 signatures and 11 current and former municipal politicians signed an open letter echoing the same call. 

Despite the attention, the Conservatives have chosen to stick by the candidate. In the reporting of the controversy, Gunn says he had acknowledged “the truly horrific events that transpired in residential schools, and any attempt to suggest otherwise is simply false.” 

With less than two weeks left before the election, and now the final deadline for changes to who is on the ballot having passed, all parties must decide if it is worth effectively forfeiting a riding to distance themselves from controversial candidates. In the case of Lawton and Gunn, that decision seems to have been made.