Article content
Ontario MPP Paul Miller flatly denies joining an anti-Islam Facebook group, which was the main reason the NDP gave for giving him the boot just months before a general election.
Article content
Miller, who plans to run as an independent in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, said the senior leaders of his riding association are Pakistani Muslims and he has a great rapport with minority communities.
“So if they had any indication over the last 20 years that there was a problem I think they would have caught on to that,” Miller said Thursday. “My opinion? I am not racist in any way, shape or form.”
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath claims Miller was removed from the caucus and told he could not run for the party in the next election due to a history of problematic behavior, culminating in his membership in the Facebook group called Worldwide Coalition Against Islam.
“It’s definitely the case that this decision was not an easy one,” Horwath said. “I think that any leader of a political party would have to look at the pattern of behavior that we’ve seen from Mr. Miller … We know it wasn’t just one incident.”
Article content
The NDP have referred to a complaint of offensive language filed by a former Miller employee that was resolved, and also an incident with Miller’s trustee wife at the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board.
Miller said he accidentally walked into his kitchen when his wife was part of an in camera school board meeting being held on Zoom during the pandemic.
The MPP said he does not handle his political Twitter and Facebook accounts, but several people had access including former and current NDP staff.
Miller said he wants an apology but would never run for the NDP again due to his treatment.
The former steelworker said he repeatedly disagreed with Horwath over policy questions, including the decision to support back-to-work legislation which he believed abandoned the party’s labor roots.
Miller joins a relatively large group of MPPs who have been removed from their political parties, including PC MPPs who disagreed with the government’s pandemic measures and vaccine mandate.
“This cancel culture is very serious in the States and here,” Miller said. “We’re all here to represent the people of Ontario. We all have our views. We discuss it, we debate it, but we don’t get personal and we don’t attack people because they won’t do what they’re told.”