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VICTORIA — Whether an unelected campaign official should be held accountable for comments has become an issue in British Columbia’s election, with NDP Leader David Eby calling on interim Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson to fire his party’s campaign director.
Eby, speaking Saturday at an unrelated campaign announcement on Vancouver Island, said Doerkson must remove Katy Merrifield for her social media comments related to the release of a report from the leader of the anti-immigration Restore Britain party.
The privately-funded report called “Rape Gang Inquiry” was published by Rupert Lowe in June.
Merrifield’s post, first published on June 17, placed an expletive in front of the word Islam and she called on her audience to defend “Western civilization.”
She called Islam an “abhorrent ideology,” which needs to be expelled.
Eby’s call for Merrifield’s removal came after Doerkson fired Conservative candidate Joachim Agou for comments about Muslims, for which Agou has since apologized.
Merrifield has since said on social media that she took down her original post within hours. Her anger, she added, was directed “at the extremism used to justify these horrific crimes, not at Muslims or their faith.”
She said that as a woman and rape survivor, she was brought to tears reading the report, which she said details sexual abuse of young girls and failure by authorities at multiple levels to protect them.
“I was heartbroken, horrified, and angry,” she says in a post. “I abhor the people who perpetuated that violence justified by their extreme ideology.”
When Eby was asked why he is calling for the removal of a person who is not on the ballot, he said that Doerkson has a chance to show where he stands.
“Either he removes her, or he very clearly would only remove a candidate where they didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of winning,” he said.
Victoria-Beacon Hill, where Agou was running for the Conservatives, is considered a safe NDP seat.
Conservative candidate Zeeshan Wahla said in a statement that Doerkson took swift and decisive action to remove Agou who made abhorrent comments toward the Muslim community.
One of Agou’s posts showed video of a car driving into a group of pro-Palestinian protesters in Switzerland. Agou said in a comment that the driver should have reversed too.
Wahla said there is a clear distinction. The fired candidate was inciting violence, while Merrifield was reacting to violence.
“I want to be clear that the language used in Ms. Merrifield’s original post from several months ago was unacceptable,” he said. “She also swiftly acknowledged that and made it clear that her reaction was informed by her past sexual trauma.”
Wahla said that Eby’s call for Merrifield’s resignation is a ploy. Wahla also described Eby’s call for a snap election while the Conservative party was in the middle of a leadership change as cynical.
“Now,” Wahla said, “he’s trying to remove our campaign manager because we are winning and he is losing.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 10, 2026.
Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press
