UPDATE: March 28, 8:30 a.m.
A Denman Island doctor suspended over COVID views is no longer running for the Conservative Party of B.C. less than one day after the party had announced his candidacy.
Dr. Stephen Malthouse is out as the party’s candidate for the newly-created riding of Ladysmith-Oceanside, party president Aisha Estey announced Wednesday night over social media.
“We thank him for putting his name forward and we wish him all the best,” she wrote.
Estey’s statement does not include a reason for the party’s decision to drop Malthouse, who has a history of controversial statements about COVID-19. They include the claim that vaccines can cause people to become magnetized.
Dr. Stephen Malthouse is no longer a candidate for the Conservative Party of British Columbia. We thank him for putting his name forward and we wish him all the best. #bcpoli
— Aisha Estey (@AishaEstey27) March 28, 2024
Malthouse’s candidacy announcement as well as his biography were gone from the party’s website as of Thursday morning, hours after the party had announced Malthouse’s candidacy.
ORIGINAL STORY:
Denman Island resident Dr. Stephen Malthouse, whose licence to practise medicine was suspended because of his positions on COVID-19 measures, is running for the Conservative Party of B.C. in the new riding of Ladysmith-Oceanside.
B.C.’s College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia suspended Malthouse’s licence on March 24, 2022, after complaints from other doctors.
“The panel concluded there would be a real risk of harm to the public if Dr. Malthouse was permitted to continue to practise without restriction,” it reads. “Therefore, it determined that an interim order was necessary to protect the public during the investigation.”
Malthouse participated in several Doctors on Tour events across B.C. before and after his suspension. During these events, he openly questioned vaccine mandates. He also directly addressed public health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry through an open letter dated Oct. 20, 2022, in which he questioned Henry’s approach to dealing with the pandemic, as well as the effectiveness of masks.
Amid his announcement into politics, the Conservatives have described him as a “seasoned family physician” who has worked in various settings and “is not afraid to challenge the status quo.”
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His official biography on the party’s website reads that his “tenure as a physician has not been without controversy” in noting that he has “faced criticism and censorship from his medical college for public statements challenging the mainstream narrative on the pandemic and the safety of vaccines.”
It goes on to say that “Malthouse’s bold stance on public health issues has stimulated important conversations, emphasizing the need for open scientific debate and the protection of individual freedoms.”
The party has been calling on on B.C. to end its vaccination mandate for health-care workers, arguing that lifting the vaccination mandate would help the healthcare system by allowing unvaccinated workers to return to work.
The provincial government has rejected this call, noting that the vaccination mandate protects patients, especially vulnerable people in long-term care and acute care.
Almost all of B.C.’s health care workers are fully vaccinated.
Premier David Eby criticized the party during a recent appearance amid rising measles cases in the country.
“This is party that wants to bring unvaccinated health workers…into our hospitals, even there is a measles outbreak in Quebec and there are measles cases across Canada,” he said. “Measles kills and seriously injures babies and toddlers. They are not vaccinated right away when they are born, they are vulnerable to measles. A political party that makes ideological decisions like this that puts babies and infants at risk is not one that has the best interests of British Columbians at heart.”
Black Press Media has reached out to Malthouse for comment and will update this story accordingly.