Ontario Liberals drop candidate under fire for comments about Sikh leader’s death

The Ontario Liberals have dropped a controversial candidate who was running for the party in a riding east of Toronto after days of pressure to act over a past social media post.

On Monday, the Progressive Conservatives unearthed a post from Liberal Oshawa candidate Viresh Bansal referring to the killing of a Sikh leader.

“You can thank India for cleaning trash people,” he wrote in a reply to a 2023 post from NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh. “Ask your gay friend @JustinTrudeau to do the same.”

The message was in response to a post about the killing of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, which Canada has said was linked to the Indian government.

Nijjar was a Canadian citizen, temple president and prominent leader of the Khalistan movement, which seeks independence for India’s Sikh-majority Punjab state.

After the post was discovered, Bansal apologized and said his words were “offensive and wrong.”

Even after the apology, Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie faced sustained calls to kick her candidate out from advocacy groups and candidates within her own party.

The World Sikh Organization released a statement branding his comments “disgusting” and demanding the party drop him. “There is no place in Canadian politics for candidates who celebrate state-sponsored killings and use hateful, homophobic rhetoric,” the organization’s president said in a statement.

Several Liberal candidates in Peel Region — where roughly 14 per cent of the population identifies as Sikh, according to the 2021 Census — followed suit, calling for their party to dissociate with Bansal.

“Since his despicable comments (came) to light, I have repeatedly heard from residents of Mississauga-Malton who have expressed anger and disgust at his hateful remarks about a member of our community,” Jawad Haroon, Liberal candidate for Mississauga-Malton said in a statement. “These are views I share.”

Throughout the week, Crombie faced questions about the candidate. She distanced herself from the comments, which she said did not represent the party, but pointed to his apology and didn’t say she would remove him.

The day after the comments were revealed, the Liberal Party said it was not dropping its candidate.

Then, on Friday evening, the decision came to remove party support for Bansal.

“We have suspended our Oshawa candidate’s campaign,” a Liberal campaign spokesperson confirmed to Global News.

Bansal is the second candidate who has been forced to withdraw from the 2025 Ontario election race after past comments were circulated.

An Ontario NDP candidate withdrew from the race on Thursday after a speech in which she said she wanted “to be a Black woman” was discovered.

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