John Beck was a political candidate in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. Beck was a Reform Party

Reform Party of Canada

The Reform Party of Canada was a Canadian federal political party that existed from 1987 to 2000. It was originally founded as a Western Canada-based protest party, but attempted to expand eastward in the 1990s. It viewed itself as a populist party....

 candidate in the 1993 federal election

Canadian federal election, 1993

The Canadian federal election of 1993 was held on October 25 of that year to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 35th Parliament of Canada. Fourteen parties competed for the 295 seats in the House at that time...

 who was forced to abandon his candidacy after making a series of racially insensitive remarks.

Beck was an heir to the Beck Taxi family, but received only a grade 9 education. He worked as a taxi driver, but was barred from operating in Toronto by the Metro Licensing Commission. He responded to an advertisement asking for Reform candidates, and won the nomination in York Centre

York Centre

York Centre is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1904 to 1917 and since 1953....

, in North York

North York, Ontario

North York is a dissolved municipality within the current city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Geographically, it comprises the central part of the northern section of Toronto. As of the 2006 Census, it has a population of 635,370. The official 2001 census count was 608,288...

. There was little support for the Reform Party in the area, and there were few candidates willing to run. Beck was given little scrutiny when he applied.

In an interview with the York University

York University

York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....

 student newspaper, he expressed particularly strong views regarding immigrants and Natives

First Nations

First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...

. Among them:

• "You have a $150,000 guy there coming to buy a citizenship into Canada to create a job, fine, he's bringing something to Canada. But what is he bringing? Death and destruction to the people."
• "We came here and took their (Natives') land from them. I feel that's what (immigrants) are doing to us... they will overpower us."
• "Look at the Natives, they're very messed up. That's what's happening to us. We're all being hooked on booze and drugs and we're going to end up just like the Indians."

He later reiterated his comments in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...

, saying "I feel if an immigrant comes into Canada and gets a job for $150,000, he is taking jobs away from us, the gentile people." In another interview with the Financial Post

Financial Post

The Financial Post was an English Canadian business newspaper, which published from 1907 to 1998. In 1998, the publication was folded into the new National Post, although the name Financial Post has been retained as the banner for that paper's business section and also lives on in the Post’s...

, Beck said that "I feel it's time some white Anglo-Saxons get involved" in politics and told another paper that "it seems to be predominantly Jewish people who are running this country."

Angry York students confronted Reform leader Preston Manning

Preston Manning

Ernest Preston Manning, CC is a Canadian politician. He was the only leader of the Reform Party of Canada, a Canadian federal political party that evolved into the Canadian Alliance...

at a campus speech and demanded a response. Manning was quick to distance himself from Beck, calling his statements inconsistent with Reform policy. The same day, however, word spread that the interview was taped. Within an hour, the party asked Beck to abandon his candidacy, which he did. "They think I'm nuts, but I've had no breakdown. They asked me to resign, so I resigned," Beck told reporters the next day.

It was too late to remove Beck's name from the ballot, however, and he ended up placing fourth in the election with 2,141 votes.