Outcry after populist Ontario Party selects candidate who allegedly promoted Holocaust denial material online

Jewish groups in Canada have called on the Ontario Party to drop a candidate who has allegedly made numerous inflammatory statements.

Nikolaos Balaskas allegedly claimed that Jews control the media, presented the Holocaust as a justified response to “Zionist partisans/resistance fighters” and described Zionists as “haters of G-d and his children”, according to B’nai B’rith Canada.

He has also been accused of sharing memes and posts that accuse “Jewish-Bolsheviks” of murdering millions and sharing content from a website containing Holocaust denial content.

Mr Balaskas reportedly made these comments while he was employed by York University in Toronto in 2016. After B’nai B’rith Canada filed a complaint, Mr Balaskas was removed from his position.

Mr Balaskas is running as a candidate for the Ontario Party, which has been described as a “right-wing populist party” and even as “far-right”, in York Centre, a riding with the second biggest Jewish population in Ontario.

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