PC Far-Right Connections — Ghamari, Lawton, Goldy, Hillier

The Ghamari case is notable not only for what happened in June 2024, but for what Ford failed to do in November 2023, when the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council sent an open letter to Ford demanding action after Ghamari described the Islamic phrase "Allahu Akbar" as a safety concern, called the hijab a "symbol of the subjugation of women," and accused an NDP Muslim MPP of being a "terrorist sympathizer." The Trillium documented these incidents in detail. Ford did not act. Only when Ghamari's conduct became internationally embarrassing — through the Robinson photo — did removal follow.

The pattern with Randy Hillier runs even deeper. Hillier served as an Ontario PC MPP from 2007 until Ford removed him from caucus in 2019 — not over far-right connections, but for making offensive comments directed at the parents of autistic children. Hillier continued as an independent MPP, became one of the primary political figures supporting the January–February 2022 Ottawa "Freedom Convoy" occupation, and was subsequently photographed with a Diagolon flag. Diagolon is a Canadian neo-fascist accelerationist movement whose members were linked to the Coutts, Alberta border blockade — where a cache of firearms, body armour, and Diagolon-patched gear was seized and four individuals were charged with conspiracy to murder RCMP officers. Hillier had appeared as a guest on livestreams hosted by Jeremy MacKenzie, Diagolon's de facto leader.

These incidents are not isolated errors by individual MPPs. They reflect a structural problem: the Ford PC party's coalition includes segments of the far-right, and the party's response to documented far-right conduct within its ranks has been consistently delayed, insufficient, and conditional on whether the conduct created political embarrassment rather than genuine harm. In Lawton's case, Ford knowingly appointed someone with documented extremist statements. In Goldy's case, Ford refused to denounce a white nationalist by name for two days. In Ghamari's case, Ford ignored months of documented Islamophobia before acting on the more internationally visible Robinson incident.

The Rebel Media connection is a through-line in these incidents. Lawton was a Rebel Media host. Goldy was fired from Rebel Media. Robinson's Canadian tour was organized by Rebel Media's founder Ezra Levant. The Ford government's tolerance of far-right figures who circulate in Rebel Media networks — until international attention forces action — suggests the party has calculated that this segment of its base is politically valuable enough to accommodate until incidents become publicly untenable.

The broader Ontario context matters: the 2022 "Freedom Convoy" occupation of Ottawa was explicitly supported by Hillier, a former Ford PC MPP, and drew participation from documented far-right and white nationalist groups including Diagolon and the Three Percenters. Ford's own response to the occupation was widely criticized as slow and disengaged; the Emergencies Act inquiry found Ford's lack of engagement left Ottawa residents feeling "abandoned" by provincial authority. The connections between Ford's Ontario political world and the convoy's organizers were never formally investigated.

For Ontario's Jewish, Muslim, and racialized communities — which include some of Canada's largest and most established communities — the Ford government's pattern of accommodation, delayed response, and political calculation around far-right conduct represents a sustained failure of leadership. Each incident generates a cycle of demands from community organizations, non-response from the Premier, eventual minimal action, and a return to normalcy — until the next incident.