OTTAWA — Conservative party leadership candidate Scott Aitchison is calling out a competitor in the race for sending an email last week about the Nuremberg Code and medical experimentation. 

Although Leslyn Lewis didn’t mention COVID-19 or vaccine mandates, Aitchison told members in his own missive today that he’s heard from Canadians who were “appalled” at the comparison drawn between contemporary issues and the Holocaust. 

The Nuremberg Code is a set of research guidelines established after the Second World War, where Nazi doctors carried out inhumane experiments on prisoners. 

Aitchison says some opposed to COVID-19 vaccinations have taken to comparing mandates to get one to the horrors of Nazi Germany. 

He says Leslyn’s email was a “dog whistle to these people so loud that it sounds more like a freight train’s horn.”

Aitchison, who like Lewis is a sitting member of Parliament for the Conservatives, says the party must show it would deliver better government than the Liberals, which recently cut ties with a group doing anti-racism work after an antisemitic tweet was discovered from one of its consultants. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 25, 2022

Stephanie Taylor, The Canadian Press