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A spat on social media, not sexual orientation, is what caused a young, gay man to be disqualified as a potential candidate for Canada’s newest political party, said a man who was asked to withdraw from seeking the nomination for the same social media dust-up.

Matthew Radford, a self-described libertarian, said he was asked to withdraw from seeking the nomination in Tory-held Oxford for the fledgling People’s Party of Canada days after filing his papers. Radford said a social media squabble he had with the openly gay Jordan Kent, who since has claimed his sexuality was the reason he was prevented from seeking the PPC nomination in Oxford, was the cause of both being dismissed from the nomination race.

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Meanwhile, party leader Maxime Bernier, vented online about the media attention paid to the messy nomination battle, taking to Twitter to denounce “activist” journalists writing “hit pieces.”

One political scientist chalked the whole mess up to the growing pains of a new party.

Radford said he was denounced online as a “vehement homophobe” and “misogynist” the day before his candidacy for the nomination was approved by the party.

Radford alleges Kent was behind the comments, while Kent claims it was a volunteer mistakenly posting to his account rather than their own.

Radford fired back by sending a mass email to party membership outlining Kent’s allegations. According to Radford, the party brass asked him to resign for this misuse of its email list.