Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch is slamming her rival candidates — notably Lisa Raitt — who oppose her proposal for screening new immigrants for “anti-Canadian values.”

Leitch made the pitch back in September and has been attacked for the proposal ever since; many accuse her of putting forth an unworkable policy to exploit “dog whistle” political messaging.

Meanwhile, Leitch has doubled down on the tactic.

“Add Lisa Raitt to the list of Conservative leadership candidates who WILL NOT screen visitors, refugees or immigrants for anti-Canadian values,” Leitch said in a fundraising email that went out to supporters Sunday evening.

At her official leadership launch in Toronto Friday, former cabinet minister and Tory MP Raitt said that maintaining a strong immigration system that helps immigrants prosper in Canada is more important than having a test “determining whether or not you enjoy freedom, or if you like maple syrup.”

Raitt told CTV’s Question Period on Sunday that “putting something like a values test in that place, in that space, I think is going to have the opposite effect and it’ll chill people wanting to come here.”

“Lisa said that she won’t screen immigrants for anti-Canadian values before granting them permanent residency status. She says a values test will put a ‘chill’ on people wanting to come to Canada,” said Leitch in her fundraising pitch.

“Lisa has decided to stand with the left-wing media elite and the rest of the Conservative candidates who don’t want to stand up for our shared Canadian values.”

The email lists all of the candidates who oppose Leitch’s proposal, including Maxime Bernier, Andrew Scheer, Chris Alexander, Michael Chong and Deepak Obhrai.

Leitch’s email does not mention leadership candidate Steven Blaney, who wants to make changes to both the Canadian citizenship test and the oath of citizenship — ideas similar to Leitch’s. While Leitch wants to somehow screen new immigrants for ‘anti-Canadian’ values, Blaney says he wants to test new immigrants for “Canadian principles.”

“It is critical that we make sure that new Canadians fully endorse Canadian principles that are the foundations of our society,” Blaney said last week in a campaign announcement.

“Barely 1 out of every 10 immigrants to Canada has a face-to-face interview with a trained Canadian immigration official. That means that nearly 300,000 immigrants this past year DID NOT have a face-to-face interview with a trained immigration official,” Leitch’s campaign claims in the email.

The email says that — until the 1990s, when the Liberal government changed the policy — all immigrants were receiving face-to-face interviews. “But today we live in a much more complicated and dangerous world than we did 20 years ago.

“Protecting our shared Canadian identity and our historic Canadian values is not a job for those who want the support of the left-wing media elite.”