GREEN Party candidate Erick Schomann from Ontario’s Simcoe-North riding resigned after an Islamophobic Facebook post from 2007 caused outrage.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) on Thursday had called on Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party, to drop Schomann as the party’s candidate. The social media post showed Schomann assisting in roasting a pig, with the caption, “We sent the leftovers to Denmark in support of the protestors of the Muhammad comic.”

“We call upon the Green Party of Canada to drop Mr. Schomann as a candidate”, said NCCM’s Executive Director Mustafa Farooq. “While we greatly cherish the free speech rights of all Canadians, when you start promising to mail pieces of a pig carcass, you can no longer stand with the integrity and moral commitment that all those who wish to be elected must have”.

Sending pieces of a pig carcass, of course, is a common practice amongst members of the alt-right who believe that sending pieces of a pig will intimidate our community. Indeed, prior to the Quebec City Mosque shootings, a pig’s head was left at the mosque, the NCCM noted.

Schomann told the Toronto Star that he expressed remorse to anyone he had offended in the post, adding: “The last thing I want to do is offend people.”

Schomann said he grew up with many Muslims in his early childhood spent in Pakistan and Muslim parts of Nigeria in the 1980s and 90s.

He told the Star: “The last thing I would want to do is harm them in any way. I said a stupid thing.”