The Liberal Party of Canada has dropped its candidate in the Calgary Confederation riding, due to the candidate’s failure to disclose a 20-year-old domestic assault charge that was stayed six weeks after it was laid, CBC News has learned.
Thomas Keeper, a 49-year-old real estate broker in Calgary, was announced as the Liberal candidate in Calgary Confederation on March 11.
Court records show that Keeper was charged with common assault on June 6, 2005. The complainant was Keeper’s wife at the time, according to divorce records.
The charge was stayed on July 20, 2005, just over six weeks after it was laid.
CBC News asked Keeper for more details about the charge, but he has not responded to a request for comment.
In a statement to CBC News, the Liberal Party of Canada confirmed on Friday afternoon that it had parted ways with Keeper.
“This information was not disclosed to the party, and Mr. Keeper is no longer a candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada,” wrote a spokesperson for the party.
The Liberal Party wouldn’t comment on Friday about its plans to seek a new candidate in Calgary Confederation.
The party faced a similar problem during the last election, when it cut ties with Toronto candidate Kevin Vuong in 2021 over his failure to disclose a sexual assault charge that was ultimately dropped in 2019. Vuong won the seat in Spadina-Fort York, and served as an independent before announcing he wouldn’t seek re-election this spring.
The Liberal announcement follows recent news that the riding’s representative since 2015, Conservative MP Len Webber, wouldn’t seek re-election this spring. The former UCP MLA in Calgary-Klein, Jeremy Nixon, is now the riding’s Conservative candidate, with Keira Gunn running for the NDP.
Lisa Young, a political science professor at the University of Calgary, says that typically political parties have potential candidates fill out long forms answering questions about their past, and vet those candidates’ social media posts to identify any possible issues.
“The last thing that a political party wants is, once they are into the election, once they can’t change the candidate, to have something from that candidate’s past become part of the election,” Young said.
She added that while Liberals wouldn’t normally expect to win Calgary Confederation, recent polling suggests the seat could be in play. It’s that much more important then, Young said, that the party has a candidate who doesn’t become a distraction and turn voters away.
“Some of what we have seen really speaks to a relative weakness of the Liberal Party of Canada on the ground in Alberta. They haven’t had hotly contested nominations, they haven’t had people identified six months in advance who have been knocking on doors up to this point,” Young said.
“There really is a sense that some of the campaign is coming together at the last minute, once the election was called.”
From here, Young said the party will need to look for the most credible candidate possible who can be vetted quickly to enter the race in Calgary Confederation.
