As Ontario election day draws closer, the province's Liberal party has been losing MPP candidates at a rate of one per day due to some pretty problematic stances and posts that have been brought to light.

First to go was 18-year-old Aidan Kallioinen, who started representing the party in Sault Ste. Marie only three days ago.

Within just one day, he was ousted from the running due to some AIDS-related comments made under his name in an online gaming forum a few years back — allegations that he has denied, saying his moniker was falsely used.

Then yesterday, a self-published book by Barry Stanley, the Liberal candidate for Parry Sound-Muskoka, was discovered; in it, the appalling claim that babies somehow become homosexual by "rebreathing" the same air too much.

A spokesperson for the campaign told the Star on Wednesday that the party "unconditionally denounces" these views, and was unaware of the work or of Stanley's connection to such crackpot theories.

Les libéraux perdent 3 candidats en 3 jours
-Alec Mazurek (Chatham-Kent-Leamington) pour avoir employé un langage homophobe
- Barry Stanley (Parry Sound-Muskoka) pour son opinion sur les origines de l’homosexualité
-Aidan Kallioinen (Sault-Sainte-Marie) suite à un article du Sun

— Natasha MacDonald-Dupuis (@NatashaCBC_RC) May 12, 2022

And finally, prospective Chatham-Kent-Leamington MPP Alec Mazurek was booted just hours before this afternoon's deadline to submit candidate nominations on the basis of old Facebook comments of his that included homophobic slurs.

He was forced to step down, but claimed in a statement that the remarks were posted when he was a young teen.

"This is not an excuse to minimize the reason that this is an issue," he wrote, "But I would also like to make clear that we're holding a child to the same standards as the adult writing this statement today."

The Liberals are still planning to run with a full roster, with the alternate, hopefully better-vetted candidates to be announced soon.