Mixed message: Brampton MP attacks Ruby Sahota over Ruby Dhalla’s policies
Posted August 24, 2015 1:02 pm.
Last Updated August 25, 2015 9:40 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Come on, Parm. Get your Rubys straight.
According to the Huffington Post, Parm Gill, the Conservative candidate and MP for Brampton North, has been attacking Liberal opponent Ruby Sahota in campaign pamphlets over policies neither she nor her party even support.
“Ruby and the Liberals have been pushing to lower the residency requirement for Old Age Security (OAS) from 10 years to 3 years for new immigrants,” Gill says in the document. “Granting OAS to individuals who have spent just 3 years in Canada, only benefits those who came to Canada late in their lives.”
Unfortunately, that policy was supported by former Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla, not Ruby Sahota.
“I don’t know what to call it other than a blatant lie,” Sahota told the Huffington Post. “He has eliminated last names in the letter, and sent this out … to all the constituents, clearly lying and misleading them to believe that I’m in support of this bill or that I have something to do with creating a bill, or the Liberals for that matter.”
In a Facebook post, Sahota took Gill to task for “unnecessarily inflam[ing] fears pertaining to immigrants,” and “inciting fear for political gain.”
“The clear intention of this deception is to confuse constituents of Brampton North into thinking that, I, Ruby Sahota had anything to do with it,” she wrote. “I unequivocally oppose this position and have never been involved with any aspect of this bill in the past nor do I intend to in the future.”
Gill has also sent out letters to riding residents criticizing the Liberals’ sex education curriculum, which is a provincial issue, not a federal one.
Letters to constituents on MP letterhead is paid for by taxpayers.
Brampton North is a new riding created from three ridings: Brampton-Springdale, Brampton West and Bramlea-Gore-Malton.
In 2011, Gill defeated Dhalla in the Brampton-Springdale riding.
