Only female candidate gets deplatformed from television appearance in Burnaby South byelection

PPC candidate Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson was excluded from a Thursday appearance on Breakfast Television Vancouver.

The television show featured Jagmeet Singh (NDP), Jay Shin (CPC), and Richard Lee (LPC). According to the program the organizers only invited members from parties that have "official status" in parliament.

The People's Party of Canada has only one member, party leader Maxime Bernier, currently sitting in parliament.

"It makes me wonder: if the only woman candidate in a byelection from say  the Liberal or NDP party was intentionally excluded from the democratic  process and prevented from getting out her campaign message, what would  the reaction be?" said PPC candidate, Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson.

"If there were fake flyers to discredit her, what would  happen? If she was attacked by the national leader of a party and  labeled, would that be okay with the media? Everyone knows the answer. It would be national news."

During the second Burnaby South debate, the NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh said he was "disgusted" by comments made about illegal immigration. And at a Tuesday night debate, he suggested that the PPC was willing to paint immigrants as criminals based on the colour of their skin.

"This is a beautiful illustration of the double standard most media has," said Thompson. "There were hundreds of  Canadians that wrote Breakfast Television on social media to include me,  but they didn't care. A fantastic group of protestors showed-up early  this morning outside the BT Studio and they didn't even mention it."

The channel eventually aired the candidate interviews at 8:30 AM on Thursday. Shortly after, PPC party leader Maxime Bernier arrived in Burnaby South to campaign alongside the party's byelection candidate.

"They think they can control the narrative by silencing me, shutting out  the People's Party of Canada and ignoring Canadians who want their important issues discussed and validated by our political debate. Well,  Canadians aren't taking it anymore. That's why the PPC is here. That's why I'm running."