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“I don’t answer for everything that’s on every news outlet or every media,” Scheer told The Canadian Press.

He pointed out that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government went to bat for the Rebel when it was denied media access to the United Nations’ climate change talks in Paris in late 2015.

“I don’t think we want to live in a country where politicians decide what is or what isn’t a legitimate outlet. But in terms of exclusive interviews at that point (last week), I took the decision that until something changes, until there’s a departure from what I viewed as crossing that line, I won’t be granting interviews.”

The Liberal party has been making hay with the Conservatives’ discomfiture, starting an online petition last week calling on Scheer and his party to completely sever all ties to the Rebel. The petition has now been signed by more than 12,000 individuals.

Liberals are evidently hoping for a reprise of the 2015 election, when the Tories campaigned against allowing Muslim women to wear the face-covering niqab during citizenship ceremonies and proposed creation of a “barbaric cultural practices” snitch line.

That gave Trudeau an opening to paint Stephen Harper’s Conservatives as divisive and intolerant — a label the Liberals would like to stick to Scheer as well — and to rally support particularly among new Canadians, many of whom had backed the Tories in the previous two elections.

The governing party is now calling on the Conservatives to ban the Rebel from future conventions and return the money the Rebel paid to set up booths at the last two. That came to $915 per booth, according to information filed by the Conservative party with Elections Canada.

“Canadians are deeply concerned about the several ties that Andrew Scheer and the Conservative party have maintained with the Rebel despite its long-standing expression of far-right and hateful positions,” said Liberal party spokesman Braeden Caley.

“Hate has no place in Canadian politics. The Conservative party should return any such funds immediately and we call upon Andrew Scheer to commit that Rebel Media won’t ever again be provided similar spaces at future events with his party.”