The conservative candidate Peter Kent Thursday questioned why his party was, as a candidate in the election of May 2, a man who fall tribute for the Tamil Tigers.
Kent said he made the decision after having seen a video on YouTube of a "Heroes Day" special that is hosted on a Tamil station end of November, by Ragavan Paranchothy now running for the conservatives in the riding of Toronto Scarborough Southwest.
In the video, Paranchothy speaks of "Tamil fighters of freedom who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of the rest of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, guidedly or unwisely.".
Elsewhere in the video, Paranchothy talks about the way in which Tamil Tigers "death symbolize the idealism that Tamil aspirations should be earned at any price."
He later said in the video that the Tamil Tigers "are now a proscribed organization" in many countries.
In April 2006, the Government of the Canada said the Tamil Tigers, also known as the Tamil Tigers of Eelam, to its official list of terrorist organizations for its use of suicide bombers and child soldiers in the conflict for decades to Sri Lanka. The designation is a crime to raise funds for the group.
Kent, who had previously approved by Paranchothy as a candidate, told the Globe and Mail that someone of his party "obviously deceived" to the nomination of Paranchothy.
"It is certainly a reflection on the lack of the Party of due diligence,"Kent said the paper."
Later Thursday, Ari Laskin, a spokesman for the campaign of Kent, told CBC News there would no further comments on the issue. Kent is a former foreign journalist who also served most recently as the Federal Minister of the environment.
Last week, Conservative leader Stephen Harper is faced with a question about Paranchothy in the wake of a report suggesting he concealed his Tamil origins by reducing its name from Ragavan Gavan.
"It was like Ragavan Paranchothy allowed broadcasts Tamil Vision International and the Canadian Multicultural Radio television, Toronto", the Globe reported.
Asked about the connection of the Tamil Tigers, Harper at the time is not the candidate problem directly, but he said that the Conservatives were strongly opposed to the organization.
"We have taken a strong position against the Tamil Tigers, and we have made a prohibited group under the [ATA]." … Our position is clear. ?
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were a political and military group trying to fight for an independent homeland in Sri Lanka since the 1970s.
The Tigers are fighting for an independent State in Northern and eastern Sri Lanka an area they refer to as Tamil Eelam, until the Government declared victory against them in May 2009.
Paranchothy described on a website "Meet our Conservative candidates" as "a distinguished and respected journalist" who "community and family life are very important."
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