The Ledge: NDP attacks Kenney's past in first days of election campaign

NDP launches attack ad against Kenney's activism as a univerity student in San Francisco

Image | Alta Elxn 20190319

Caption: UCP leader Jason Kenney greeted workers at Total Energy Services in Leduc Alta. on Tuesday. (Amber Bracken/Canadian Press)

United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney says he will not take action against candidates who were revealed on Friday to have expressed sexist and misogynist views in the past.
"We tried to do very vigorous candidate screening to ensure that people had not expressed truly hateful, bigoted views," Kenney told reporters at a campaign stop on Friday.
"Our standard was not perfection ... if our standard was that no one had ever said anything that anybody could possibly construe as offensive, that would be a standard that very few people could meet."
Kenney has been facing questions all week about his past as a student activist at the University of San Francisco, the sudden resignation of Caylan Ford as the UCP candidate in Calgary-Mountain View and the close relationship his UCP leadership campaign had with Jeff Callaway's campaign.
On Thursday, audio emerged of Jeremy Wong, a pastor at the Calgary Chinese Alliance Church who was appointed the new candidate in Calgary-Mountain View, quoting scripture that tells wives to submit to their husbands.
Olatunde Obasan, the UCP candidate in Edmonton-South, posted a meme on Facebook in 2017 telling women that in order to bring out the best in their husbands they need to give them respect and sex.
This week on The Ledge podcast, hosts Michelle Bellefontaine and Kim Trynacity look at the first few days of the campaign. While the NDP lobs attack ads against Kenney, the UCP leader has tried to keep the focus on "jobs, the economy and pipelines."
CBC Calgary reporter Helen Pike and CBC television host Rob Brown join Michelle and Kim to talk about how the UCP and NDP leaders have focused on Lethbridge and Calgary.