Derek Sloan

Derek Sloan (born November 11, 1984) is a Canadian politician who represented the riding of Hastings—Lennox and Addington.

Sloan was born in 1984 and raised near Waterford, Ontario.

He attended Kingsway College, a private Seventh-day Adventist Church-affiliated high school in Oshawa.

In 2003, Sloan enrolled at Pacific Union College (PUC), a private university in Napa Valley, California associated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

There he completed a bachelor's degree in business in 2007.

While attending PUC, Sloan served as president of the university's student association in 2007.

After graduating, Sloan moved to Toronto, Ontario to work at a water-fuel systems company.

Subsequently, he ran Sloan's Furniture Liquidation in Oshawa from 2011 to 2014.

In 2014, Sloan began a law degree at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario; he finished articling in 2018.

Sloan has said he pursued law because he was interested in "defending religious liberties against political correctness."

Sloan and his wife Jennifer have two daughters and a son.

In 2018, Sloan announced that he would seek the Conservative Party of Canada's nomination for the riding of Hastings—Lennox and Addington.

At the nomination meeting, Sloan defeated three other candidates: a city councillor who had served for fifteen years in Belleville, a lawyer who had lived in the area for twenty years, and a local business owner.

Shortly after being elected to the House of Commons of Canada in the 2019 Canadian federal election, Sloan ran as a candidate for the Conservative Party leadership in 2020 and was eliminated after the first ballot.

He has received national news coverage for his controversial views on LGBTQ issues, and making allegedly racist remarks.

On January 20, 2021, Sloan was expelled from the Conservative Party caucus after it was revealed that he had received a donation from white supremacist Paul Fromm.

Party leader Erin O'Toole explained that the decision had been made "because of a pattern of destructive behaviour involving multiple incidents."

In the 2021 Canadian federal election, Sloan ran in the Banff—Airdrie riding as an independent, and finished fifth.

Sloan defeated one-term Liberal incumbent Mike Bossio in the 2019 federal election, becoming the first Seventh-day Adventist ever elected to the Canadian House of Commons.

Sloan announced his candidacy for the 2020 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election on January 22, 2020.

On January 27, Sloan made national headlines after tweeting in response to fellow leadership candidate Richard Décarie his belief that being gay is a choice.

During an interview on the CTV Power Panel Sloan went on to elaborate that he felt that the science of whether sexual orientation is a choice is unclear.

Sloan's comments were criticized by his former election campaign manager, Eric Lorenzen.

A self-identified social conservative, Sloan attracted controversy for the policy positions he endorsed throughout the leadership race.

Sloan stated that were he elected leader he would permit Conservative MPs to reopen the debate on abortion or introduce private members’ bills aimed at overturning same-sex marriage.

He also voiced opposition to Bill C-16, which protects people from discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

He also vowed to vote against a federal ban on the pseudoscientific practice of conversion therapy, arguing that parents should be able to make children identify with the body they are born with.

Sloan has been widely criticized in the media and even within the Conservative Party for these views.

On February 6, 2020, members of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte blockaded the Canadian National Railway north of Tyendinaga, in support the Wetʼsuwetʼen hereditary chiefs' opposition to the Coastal GasLink Pipeline within Sloan's riding of Hastings—Lennox and Addington.

Sloan spoke publicly about the blockade for the first time on February 18, stating the Liberal government should have responded faster to the protests.

Three days later, Sloan characterized the protesters as "radical extremists" and called on the Ontario Provincial Police to enforce an injunction to remove the blockade.

On April 21, 2020, Sloan tweeted a video in which he asked whether Canada's Chief Medical Officer Theresa Tam worked "for Canada or for China?"

Sloan's comments singled out Theresa Tam, a Chinese Canadian, and were denounced as racist on social media; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called them intolerant, saying they had no place in Canada, and several fellow Conservative MPs denounced them as personal attacks.

Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer initially declined to comment on Sloan's remarks, but stated that it was "inappropriate to question someone’s loyalty to their country" the following week.

The municipality of Hastings County condemned Sloan's remarks as "cruel and racist" and unrepresentative of the people of his riding, before calling on him to be expelled from the Conservative Party.

Sloan said the following day that he would not apologize, because "the idea people would think it was racist was not even on my mind. I would have said those statements about any public health officer that made those decisions in her spot."

The Chinese Canadian National Council (SJ) submitted a letter to the Conservative Party demanding that Sloan be expelled from the party's caucus and denied the opportunity to run for its leadership.

In an emergency session on April 29, 2020, Conservative MPs demanded Sloan apologize for his statements.

In a statement on April 29, Sloan said his comments were "rhetorical" but declined to retract them.

In the leadership election, Sloan placed last on the first ballot and was subsequently eliminated after winning 14.39% of first-ballot points.