Why Extreme Ideas Are Still a BC Conservative Problem

The B.C. Conservatives went into this snap election trying to sell voters on a more moderate version of their party under interim leader Lorne Doerkson.

But far-right ideas have still popped up on the campaign trail and provided fuel for the NDP to mount attacks.

The Conservatives have dropped two candidates over offensive comments but have refused to remove campaign director Katy Merrifield after the BC NDP highlighted Islamophobic statements Merrifield made and promoted on social media earlier this year.

The BC NDP have also pushed the Conservatives on homophobic comments candidate Heather Maahs allegedly made to a fellow MLA.

And a former staffer for the far-right party OneBC, who is known for a range of offensive and racist comments on X, has also made a series of statements implying he is participating in B.C. Conservative campaigns. The party has not responded to The Tyee’s questions about Othman Mekhloufi’s claims.

When the Conservative Party of BC ran against the BC NDP in the 2024 election, the party’s roster of new and untested candidates was constantly criticized for a range of comments, from residential school denialism, racism and conspiracy theories to “jokes” and other interactions with white nationalist commentary.

After a chaotic five months under hard-right leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay, the party has tried to portray itself as more moderate under Doerkson, who took over the party just before the election call.

But political observers say BC NDP Leader David Eby may have painted himself into a corner when he used the threat of far-right ideas inside the Conservatives to justify calling a snap election. That decision has proved to be unpopular with voters.

“The challenge in this election is about trying to create space to talk about these utterances that are clearly inappropriate and need to be called out,” said Stewart Prest, a political science instructor at the University of British Columbia.

“But also the backdrop of how that has become harder in this particular election because of the way in which David Eby is conducting it.”

Terri Givens, a political science professor at UBC, said voters on the left side of the political spectrum have been asking leaders to call out the far-right ideas that have become more and more common on social media and in political discourse.

Givens added that while she is skeptical about the NDP’s strategy in calling an election voters don’t want, the rise of the far right is a real concern in B.C. Just days before the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, for example, members of the white nationalist group Second Sons Canada appeared in uniform in Kamloops and displayed offensive messages about children dying in residential schools.

“I'm not convinced this is a great strategy, but I think I understand why,” Givens said.

Some candidates dropped over offensive comments, others remain

The Conservatives have dropped two candidates over offensive social media comments. Joachim Agou, who was the Conservative candidate for Victoria-Beacon Hill, was dropped by the party on Oct. 8 after several offensive social media comments came to light.

In one 2025 post, Agou responded to a video showing a car driving into pro-Palestinian protesters in Switzerland with the comment “Il aurait du faire une marche arrière aussi,” which translates to “He should have reversed too.” He also shared a meme in 2025 that showed U.S. President Donald Trump on board Air Force One with the text “‘Trump: My God, Pakistan looks like a shithole.’ ‘That's London Mr. President.’”

Vancouver-Strathcona candidate Jordan McIntosh was dropped by the party on Thursday after an anonymous X account allegedly linked to McIntosh was made public. Callista Ryan, the NDP’s candidate for Vancouver-Quilchena, posted a screenshot from the account that suggested Hitler’s role in killing Jewish people during the Holocaust was exaggerated. The party removed McIntosh following Ryan’s post.

Ryan ran against former Conservative MLA Dallas Brodie in the 2024 election in Vancouver-Quilchena. She said it was important to highlight McIntosh’s comments because she’s seen the harm Brodie’s rhetoric has caused to people in her community.

Brodie was ejected from the Conservative Party of BC in 2025 after making comments that appeared to mock residential school survivors. She then formed the far-right party OneBC, which has focused on promoting residential school denialism and attacking Indigenous rights.

“Who parties are recruiting really matters,” said Ryan. “And having that vetting process down makes a really big difference in who we're letting run to represent a party in the neighbourhood and in the community.”

While the Conservatives moved quickly to drop Agou and McIntosh, the New Democrats have noted those candidates were running in NDP stronghold ridings the Conservatives were never going to win.

Eby has also called out the Conservatives for continuing to run incumbent MLA Heather Maahs after she allegedly called fellow MLA Elenore Sturko “immoral” for being gay. (On X, Maahs has denied Sturko’s assertions that she made the comment.)

The Conservative candidate for Juan de Fuca-Malahat, Mike Hicks, is also being condemned for saying that First Nations need to be “conquered” in order to spur economic development. Hicks has said his comment was taken out of context when he was initially prevented from completing a sentence in a candidates’ forum by the moderator.

He was allowed to continue, and then said: “In law, we have to conquer or sign a treaty with the First Nations. We just arrived, we settled in, and we didn’t do any of it. And that’s why we have to have these treaties.”

The party has also stood by its campaign director, Katy Merrifield, after the NDP highlighted several social media posts she made earlier this year.

In one post, Merrifield wrote: “Fuck Islam. Defend Western civilization. I will die on this hill. As a Canadian, as a Brit, as a civilized human being. Expel this abhorrent ideology and everyone who defends it” above a post from another user about a U.K. inquiry into sexual abuse and human trafficking.

The BC NDP have also highlighted posts from other users Merrifield had promoted. The posts characterized Islam as “rape culture,” called New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani a “jihad-loving mayor” and characterized Islam as a threat to “the West.”

Merrifield has said her own past trauma was behind some of the posts, but she has not apologized. The National Council of Canadian Muslims has said Merrifield’s comments amount to a “pattern of promoting Islamophobic views” and said the organization is troubled because at “no point did she apologize for her statement or recognize the pain caused, and she has not addressed her pattern of promoting a range of problematic messages.”

The Conservative Party of BC did not respond to a request for comment from The Tyee about these candidates’ comments.

Far-right operative suggests he’s involved in Conservative campaigns

Both OneBC and BC NDP staffers have also been busy collecting screenshots showing how a young far-right political operative has been suggesting he’s part of the effort to elect B.C. Conservatives.

Othman Mekhloufi’s offensive social media posts and attraction to far-right ideas previously led to a dramatic split inside OneBC. He also took part in a Spaces call that included white nationalist leader Alex Vriend and gave tips on how to influence mainstream Conservative parties to adopt a mass deportation agenda.

The Tyee reviewed screenshots of text messages and a social media post that appeared to show Mekhloufi posing with the Conservative candidate for Vancouver-Yaletown, Margareta Dovgal. Mekhloufi posted the caption “Patriots” on the photo. Dovgal did not respond to a request for comment sent to her campaign email address.

Another screenshot shows a Sept. 26 social media post from Mekhloufi endorsing Simon Chandler, the Conservatives’ candidate for Burnaby North, and Chandler responding with “Much appreciated!” Chandler did not respond to a message sent to his campaign’s Instagram account.

In a recorded phone call released by OneBC staffer Wyatt Claypool, Mekhloufi can be heard urging a staffer to remove OneBC candidates to avoid splitting the vote with Conservative candidates. Mekhloufi’s X account has now been deleted.

One of Mekhloufi’s now-deleted X posts also defends Merrifield, saying in part, “Katy has never shown me an ounce of prejudice despite having an Arab last name.... It’s 2026. We are not going to acquiesce to mobs who tell us [to] eat our own people.”

Neither the Conservatives nor Mekhloufi responded to a request for comment from The Tyee.