{"id":928724,"date":"2026-10-11T07:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T07:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/928724\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T07:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T07:08:11","slug":"b-c-conservative-campaign-director-under-fire-for-anti-islam-posts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/928724\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C. Conservative campaign director under fire for anti-Islam posts"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The campaign director for the B.C. Conservatives is facing criticism over anti-Islam posts she shared on social media earlier this year, just days after the party fired another candidate over his own offensive posts.<\/p>\n

Campaign director Katy Merrifield posted on X in June in response to a U.K. inquiry about child sexual exploitation: “F–k Islam. Defend Western civilization.” The post was later removed.<\/p>\n

“We are deeply hurt by the comments made by B.C. Conservative Campaign Director Katy Merrifield … [and] several subsequent posts that demonstrate a pattern of promoting Islamophobic views,” the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) wrote in a post on X Friday.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A screen capture of the post on X from Katy Merrifield from June 17, accessed using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and blurred by CBC News. Merrifield later removed the post. (@katy_merrifield\/X)<\/p>\n

This comes after the party dropped<\/a> Joachim Agou, its candidate for Victoria-Beacon Hill, over offensive social media posts targeting Palestinians and Pakistanis that came to light this week, which the council said made Merrifield’s posts especially concerning.<\/p>\n

Merrifield, who previously worked as head of communications for federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, is the campaign director for the B.C. Conservative Party and not a candidate.<\/p>\n

She acknowledged her past comments in a post<\/a> Friday, saying they stemmed from her experience as a rape survivor and from feeling “heartbroken, horrified and angry” after reading accounts of sexual abuse involving young girls in the U.K. and the failure of authorities to protect them.<\/p>\n

“I took down my original post within hours because my anger was directed at the extremism used to justify these horrific crimes, not at Muslims or their faith,” Merrifield wrote.<\/p>\n

But the NCCM said “at no point did [Merrifield] apologize for her statement or recognize the pain it caused,” adding that she also did not address what it called a pattern of promoting “a range of problematic messages” on social media.<\/p>\n

“There is no room for hate in any area of Canadian politics,” the NCCM said.<\/p>\n

Rise in Islamophobia<\/p>\n

The NCCM said B.C. has seen a significant rise in Islamophobia, pointing to incidents involving vehicles being driven at people, attacks on imams and vandalism at mosques.<\/p>\n

Statistics Canada figures show police-reported hate crimes targeting Muslims across Canada rose by roughly 173 per cent between 2020 and 2024<\/a>, from 84 incidents to 229.<\/p>\n

In June, a Victoria imam said he was assaulted<\/a> outside his home by a man who told him to “go back to your country.”<\/p>\n

\"Stephen<\/p>\n

National Council of Canadian Muslims CEO Stephen Brown is seen in a file photo. The NCCM says it will engage in ‘good-faith’ conversations with the B.C. Conservatives, ‘but Islamophobia must be addressed.’ (Ivanoh Demers\/CBC)<\/p>\n

“We will engage in good-faith conversation with the B.C. Conservatives about these troubling revelations, but Islamophobia must be addressed,” the NCCM wrote.<\/p>\n

“This must be a bipartisan commitment.” <\/p>\n

Criticism and response<\/p>\n

B.C. NDP Leader David Eby spoke to reporters Saturday morning from Courtenay, B.C., saying Merrifield\u2019s posts highlighted by the NCCM were “so hateful, directed to a very specific religious community in our province,” and deserved consequences.<\/p>\n

He said if Muslims practising Islam in B.C. can be targeted by the campaign director of a major political party, then “no community in this province is safe.”<\/p>\n

“[Doerkson] has to remove her,” Eby said.<\/p>\n

CBC News asked B.C. Conservative Leader Lorne Doerkson for a statement but did not receive one before publication.<\/p>\n

The B.C. Conservative Party replied to a request for comment with a statement from Zeeshan Wahla, its candidate for Surrey City Centre.<\/p>\n

Wahla said the language used in Merrifield\u2019s original post from several months ago was “unacceptable,” but said it was clear her reaction was “informed by her past sexual trauma.”<\/p>\n

He said the difference between Agou being dropped over his posts and Merrifield\u2019s situation comes down to the former candidate “inciting violence,” while Merrifield was “reacting to violence.”<\/p>\n

CentreBC Leader Elenore Sturko, in a video posted to Instagram Friday, said just a day after the B.C. Conservatives fired a candidate over “racist, deplorable garbage on the internet,” past posts from another member of the campaign team had come to light.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s the same old people and the same old Conservative party,” she said.<\/p>\n

Sturko said if Doerkson “can\u2019t stand up for all British Columbians,” then he should not “stand up and ask to be made premier.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":928725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":["post-928724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/928725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}