Conservatives still to replace Toronto-Danforth candidate

Have until Sept. 28 to fill vacancy after dropping Tim Dutaud

Tim Dutaud was dropped as Toronto-Danforth Conservative candidate over videos of him making offensive prank calls.

Tim Dutaud was dropped as Toronto-Danforth Conservative candidate over videos of him making offensive prank calls.

The Conservative Party has yet to replace the candidate it recently dropped in Toronto-Danforth riding.

It has until Sept. 28 to register new candidates with Elections Canada.

The Conservatives dropped their candidate in Toronto-Danforth after an offensive videos surfaced online.

Tim Dutaud was forced to leave the race on Sept. 7 after he was identified in Youtube videos called “The Unicaller”. They appear to show Dutaud calling people, pretending he has a disability and an issue with Viagra. The videos were posted in June 2009 and have received thousands of views

Attempts to reach Dutaud for an interview on Sept. 9 were unsuccessful.

The Conservative Party removed Dutaud’s biography from their website. According to Dutaud’s LinkedIn account, he works as a real estate representative with Royal LePage and Real Estate Homeward Brokerage. Prior to that, he worked in “production” with CBC Television from 1995 to 2001 and then as a radio host with the Score Media Group.

At a campaign rally in Toronto, Conservative leader Stephen Harper reacted to Dutuad’s and another candidate’s exit from the party by saying, “What this means is that we keep the highest standard for candidates and these two individuals are no longer candidates,” Harper said.

The second individual Harper referred to was former Scarborough-Rouge Park candidate Jerry Bance who was dropped just hours before Dutaud. Bance was caught on camera urinating in a homeowner’s coffee cup while he was working as a service technician. The video was retrieved in a 2012 CBC Marketplace investigation. Bance also ran for the Conservatives in 2006 and 2008.

At a campaign event in Summerside, P.E.I., Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said this shows Harper “didn’t bother” to screen the past of these two candidates. Meanwhile, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair spoke to reporters at the annual Labour Day parade in Toronto.

“I guess that this was one mugshot that Canadians weren’t expecting from the Conservatives,” Mulcair said.

About this article

By: Ryan Chatterjee
Posted: Sep 14 2015 1:00 pm
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Filed under: Canada Votes 2015 News
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