Photo: Stacey Ponton / X

UPDATE 5:25 p.m.

The People’s Party of Canada candidate for Kelowna won’t apologize for any of the racist posts he’s recently shared on social media, but says he does not like being labelled a racist.

“I’m not going to say sorry for any of that. I just agreed with it,” Stacey Ponton said in a phone call with Castanet.

“I agreed with somebody who said racist things, OK, I do agree with that. But I’m not going to sit here and be accused of being a racist when I’m not.”

During the 15-minute call, Ponton explained that he is running for office to “save our country from turning into India or Pakistan.”

Ponton said immigration levels are far too high in Canada, “the PPC platform is about getting these people who don’t believe in our values out of our country.”

“Yeah, maybe I went too far,” he continued. “Maybe I was a little too insensitive towards others, but the thing is, I’m not going to be worrying about what leftists think anymore.”

“I stood up because nobody else will,” Ponton said. “I’ll take the arrows for saying stupid things. I’m not a very smart man, but the thing is, I know what Canada needs. It needs this platform more than ever.”

Ponton says he was born and raised in Kelowna and does not like what he sees when he drives around.

“To tell me that this is going to be the way it is, no, I’m not happy with this. This is not Canada, this is India,” he said.

Still, Ponton rejects the label of racist.

“It was pretty stupid to click some of that stuff, but hey, it’s what I felt at the time,” he said. “You can get worked up looking at some of that stuff and the next thing you know something comes along, and yeah I feel the same way, and then maybe 20 minutes later you might not feel that way. But at the time I did.”

ORIGINAL 2:40 p.m.

The newly-selected People’s Party of Canada candidate in Kelowna is a prolific poster of racist views on social media.

Stacey Ponton is listed by the PPC as the party’s candidate in the Kelowna riding and is described as a person “driven by a deep commitment to standing up for his community and defending the core values of freedom, personal responsibility, respect, and fairness.”

But on the social media platform X, Ponton shares proudly racist views, mostly targeting Indian immigrants.

“It’s never too late to be racist,” proclaims a meme reposted on X, originally posted by a B.C.-based account Blonde Bigot.

Blonde Bigot’s overtly racist posts are frequently reposted by Ponton, who also frequently shares his own anti-Indian views from the account.

A request for comment from the PPC’s headquarters did not get a response. A message sent to Ponton on X was ignored.

Hate and related crimes have been rising in Canada in recent years with residents of South Asian ethnicity facing higher rates of hate threats and assaults, according to RCMP data.

Reported hate crimes targeting South Asians have increased by 181% between 2019 and 2023, which is the most recent data available.

During the last federal election in 2021, the PPC attracted seven and 7.5 per cent of the vote in the Kelowna-Lake Country and Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola ridings, respectively.

It is expected a federal election will be called by Sunday.

Advisory: some readers may find the posts below disturbing.

Photo: X screenshots

Screenshots of seven recent posts by the PPC candidate in Kelowna.