CALGARY— The president of a conservative-leaning legal advocacy group who was widely criticized for comparing Nazi and communist symbols to “the rainbow flag” in a speech last November said the symbol of inclusion can still represent “an attack against our fundamental freedoms” in a speech on Saturday.

John Carpay, president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, was scheduled to speak on “parental rights in the GSA era” at the Economic Education Association of Alberta’s annual conference in northeast Calgary. Carpay’s organization has challenged Bill 24, which strengthened protections for gay-straight alliance clubs in the province’s schools and prohibits school staff from telling parents if their children have joined one, unless there are concerns about their safety.

But during his speech, he paraphrased some of the comments he made at a conference hosted by The Rebel, a far-right web site, although claimed on Saturday that he was simply repeating them.

“So, what did I say at The Rebel speech on November the 10th? I’m going to say it again this morning,” he told the conference’s audience of roughly 70 people. “That the attacks against our fundamental freedoms can come from any source, any direction, any banner, any flag, any colour, any political symbol can be the banner under which our fundamental freedoms are attacked.”

The audience responded with applause.

His original comments in November explicitly suggested the pride flag — the rainbow flag used by the LGBTQ community internationally — shared characteristics with those used by Nazism and communism; namely, a hostility towards an individual’s freedom.

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“How do we defeat today’s totalitarianism?” Carpay said in a livestream video of November’s event viewed by Star Calgary. “Because again, you’ve got to think about the common characteristics. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a hammer and sickle for communism, or whether it’s the swastika for Nazi Germany, or whether it’s the rainbow flag, the underlying thing is a hostility towards individual freedoms.”

Carpay apologized for November’s comments roughly a day after he made them. In a statement posted to the Justice Centre’s website, he said it “was not my intention to broadly equate the rainbow flag with the evils of Communism and Nazism, and I again offer my apology to anyone who may have interpreted my remarks in such a fashion.”

However, Carpay spent a good portion of his speech on Saturday criticizing news outlets, and CBC specifically, for making this very interpretation of his previous remarks. He described a story published by CBC about his appearance at the conference as a “smear piece,” said it violated journalistic ethics and even suggested he was mulling the possibility of legal action against news outlets who’d reported on his past comments.

“I’ll give it some thought,” he told an audience member who asked about the possibility of legal action. “I mean, it’s not likely that I’m going to start a court action over it. But there is a compliance process. I’ve used it before. I don’t have a lot of faith in it.”

Kristopher Wells, associate professor of health and community studies at McEwan University, said Carpay never made a proper apology to the LGBTQ community following his comments in November. He believes Carpay’s latest comments are simply a means to convey the same sentiments in a more subdued fashion.

“This kind of cloaked messaging is simply a dog whistle to a particular segment of society to say ‘We hear you and we’re going to continue to do the work that we believe in’,” Wells said. “Unfortunately, that work is harmful to the LGBT community and needs to stop.”

Politicians from all sides of the aisle — including Conservative MP Michelle Rempel, Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault, and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley — denounced Carpay’s comments on social media last November. United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney said comparing the gay rights movement “in any way to genocidal totalitarianism is vile, particularly given the violent persecution of LGBT people under such regimes.”

“I acknowledge that John Carpay apologized for his offensive remarks,” Kenney wrote on Twitter at the time.

However, Kenney refused to remove Carpay from the UCP’s membership in November, saying that decision was beyond his control.

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The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms was established in 2010 to “defend the constitutional freedoms of Canadians through litigation and education,” according to its website. Its clients include an anti-abortion student group at the University of Alberta, a small business in southern Alberta fighting the Canada Summer Jobs attestation requirements, and 26 faith-based schools in Alberta opposed to Bill 24.

Carpay refused to elaborate on his remarks when he was approached by Star Calgary at Saturday’s conference after his speech.

“I stand by my comments this morning,” he said.

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