A group of voters plans to meet in front of Calgary Centre Conservative candidate Lee Richardson’s office at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, October 10, to protest comments about immigrants and crime he made in an interview with Fast Forward.
“Particularly in big cities, we’ve got people that have grown up in a different culture,” Richardson said in a September interview. “And they don’t have the same background in terms of the stable communities we had 20, 30 years ago in our cities… and don’t have the same respect for authority or people’s person or property.” Richardson later said he regretted his remarks.
Protest organizer Arash Ranjbaran, a Calgary engineer who immigrated from Iran, says he’s disturbed by the number of people who agree with Richardson’s original comments. “When an elected official speaks out against immigrants, he encourages these people and emboldens them,” says Ranjbaran. “I just wanted to make a statement and say, ‘No, we as Calgarians do not want to be represented by such a person.’”
Richardson’s campaign office is at 1136 10th Ave. S.W. Richardson has said he stands by his retraction.
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