CALGARY—Being ejected from the Freedom Conservative Party’s slate for past Islamophobic commentary hasn’t stopped former Sylvan Lake-Innisfail candidate Clayton Knutson from doubling down.

The party said it removed Knutson as their candidate in mid-March after he failed to disclose personal and financial information to them as part of his nomination paperwork, as well as hateful posts he’d made about Islam.

He was offered the chance to quietly resign, according to party spokesperson Cody Johnston and Knutson himself.

The former candidate refused and has continued to post inflammatory rhetoric on Twitter over the past few days.

In these posts, Knutson claimed Islam is a violent religion, Islamophobia “does not exist,” and alluded to running the Red Deer chapter of the far-right, anti-immigrant group Soldiers of Odin. He also said he’d happily support former United Conservative candidate Caylan Ford, despite her resignation over a series of private Facebook messages she sent where she expressed white nationalist views.

Most of his posts remain online, although Knutson deleted his tweet alluding to running the Soldiers of Odin’s Red Deer chapter and said he’d been joking. Shane Skeoch, the president of the Red Deer chapter, told Star Calgary he hadn’t even heard of Knutson. However, Knutson has no plans to delete what he described as his “intellectual criticisms” of Islam.

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“That’s why I didn’t resign, because I’m willing to go through and justify the things I said,” Knutson said in an interview Sunday. “Because I think people should be allowed to have a sense of humour and be allowed to run for politics.”

Despite supporting United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney in the past, Knutson said he joined the FCP last July because of his opposition to how the UCP vetted their candidates. He hoped the fledgling conservative party led by MLA Derek Fildebrandt would adhere more closely to the “grassroots guarantee” Kenney promised his members shortly after the UCP formed.

Running as a candidate for the FCP was also cheaper, Knutson said.

Despite his posts, Knutson claimed it isn’t possible to be Islamophobic. He said he was only interested in critiquing the contents of the Quran. However, in his interview with Star Calgary, he described the Islamic holy book as a “war document.”

Johnston said Knutson’s Islamophobic rhetoric has absolutely no place in either the province or the FCP, especially in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacres earlier this month.

“If he’s trying to prove that he is Islamophobic, he’s doing a great job of that,” Johnston said. “No party in Alberta is going to stand for that.”

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Knutson’s removal from the party comes amid other accusations of hateful or misogynistic comments from candidates. Former Calgary-Mountain View candidate Caylan Ford resigned just after midnight on Monday after Press Progress reported she’d used a white supremacist talking point in a private Facebook message from 2017.

The candidate who replaced her, Chinese Alliance Church minister Jeremy Wong, has since come under fire after the NDP posted a recording of a sermon he allegedly gave in which he says women should submit to their husbands. He is also facing criticism for his ties to Journey Canada, which allegedly offers conversion therapy for members of the LGBTQ community.