

Chris Fox, CP24.com





Mayor John Tory is distancing himself from a former strategist who resigned from the campaign of federal Conservative leadership hopeful Kellie Leitch following several controversies.

Nick Kouvalis, who worked on Tory’s 2014 campaign, announced on Thursday that he was stepping down from his position with Leitch’s campaign due to the fact that he had “become a distraction.”

Kouvalis’s abrupt resignation came on the heels of several public controversies.

Last month, Kouvalis was criticized after telling Maclean’s that he posted false information to Twitter about the Liberal government in an effort “to make the left go nuts."

Kouvalis also apologized last week after he used a slur against a constitutional expert and university professor who was critical of Leitch’s policies on Twitter.

“Prior to this decision by Mr. Kouvalis, I had clearly expressed to him my complete rejection of his actions in connection with the Leitch campaign,” Tory said in the statement issued early Friday morning. “As for speculation about my future campaign team, let me be clear: I do not have a campaign team. I am forbidden by law from having one. My focus is on my job as mayor and I won't be making decisions about who will play roles in my campaign organization for many more months.”

Kouvalis has not held any formal position in Tory’s administration but in December the mayor described his former campaign strategist as “one of the smartest people I have available to me” in an interview with the National Post.

Tory, however, told reporters on Friday that people “grossly overestimate the degree” to which he has dealings with Kouvalis, who he said he only speaks to “once and a while,” more so as a friend.

“This relationship that you all ask about is far more in your mind than it is reality,” he said.

Kouvalis has dealt with alcohol addiction in past

In a statement posted to Facebook on Thursday, Kouvalis said that "when a member of a campaign team comes to focus of media coverage, the time comes to resign."

Kouvalis also wrote that the "pressures" associated with the campaign were not conducive to his "personal wellbeing."

Kouvalis previously stepped aside from Leitch's campaign in April after being charged with impaired driving and announcing that he was struggling with an alcohol addiction.

Tory was asked on Friday whether Kouvalis would have a rule in his reelection campaign but would only say that his recent actions “are the kinds of things” he will have to “take into account” when the time comes to assemble a team.

“There is no campaign so there is no tie other than as a friend and I would say that as a friend and someone who has assisted me in the past I owe it to him to give him a chance to deal with his personal issues,” he said. “I have indicated that I completely reject the approaches that have been taken during this campaign he has just resigned from.”

Leitch has generated controversy for running a campaign largely centred around a plan to screen new immigrants for so-called “Canadian values.”