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Instead, he said, he was contacted by the party and given one hour to make a choice: resign for personal reasons, or be removed as candidate.

Guillet said his social media posts were public, and the party knew or should have known about them when they first approached him to run for them in 2017.

“One is entitled to ask the question: Is it incompetence, or bad faith?” he said at a news conference, where he was flanked by his wife and supporters from different cultural communities.

Guillet questioned why the party decided to turn on him over “facts that have been known for over two years” after repeatedly expressing support in private.

“All the party officials I met confirmed to me they were convinced I was not racist or anti-Semitic,” he said. “They told me that they were simply afraid of the media.”

The former imam said he still wants to run in October’s federal election as a Liberal but doesn’t rule out running for another party or as an Independent if he’s not reinstated.

Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith said last Friday it had uncovered “a pattern of disturbing anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements” made by the candidate on social media that have since been removed.

In one of the comments, dated July 8, 2017, Guillet welcomed the release from prison of Raed Salah, whom the Jewish group described as a militant close to Hamas, which Canada lists as a terror group.

Guillet congratulated Salah on being freed from a “prison of occupied Palestine,” and prayed that he would one day succeed in liberating “all of Palestine.” He described Salah as a “resistance fighter” and a “jihadist.”