Wayne Bennett's tweets about Muslims threaten leadership bid

The province's Progressive Conservative Party is investigating one of its leadership candidates to see if he should be kicked out of the race after an online comment.

The party feels that Wayne Bennett may have crossed the line by making what some have called racist comments on Twitter.

During a Twitter conversation, Bennett compared the phenomenon of online "trolling" to Muslims and the use of suicide bombers.

In the tweet, Bennett said Muslim women and children can't be trusted.

Convention chair Tom Williams said the party is investigating after receiving a wave of complaints.

"We're going to be taking a serious review of this, and the party is very disturbed by that," Williams said.

"I've been in discussions with the premier's office, as well, and they're most concerned over any actions that may be associated in any way, shape or form with any kind of remarks such as that. And so we take it very, very serious."

Bennett maintains the comments were not racist. He said on Twitter that he was simply trying to point out that one might suspect Muslim women or children living in war zones could be suicide bombers in the same way one could worry a Tory party official could use a fake identity online to sabotage a leadership candidate.

On Saturday, he tweeted that he would stop using Twitter during the review process, but several hours later the account activity resumed.

Bennett said if he gets kicked out of the race, he will take the PC party to court.

Bennett is up against Bill Barry and Frank Coleman in the leadership race.

Whoever wins the leadership race will be the next premier of Newfoundland and Labrador.