A candidate in the recent federal election says he was shocked at the tone of the campaign.

Matthew Chapman, a teacher by profession, ran for the Conservatives in Avalon district.

He calls it a humbling experience, but he says on a national level, the campaign was “sad.”

He says one of the key lessons he teaches students is to treat others the way you would like to be treated, and he doesn’t believe anyone on the national front adhered to that concept.

He thinks Canadians deserved a more meaningful discussion about how to make a better future. Locally, Chapman says he was surprised by the perception of the party and some of the hostility and threats he faced.

He says never before the election was he called a homophobe, a racist, Nazi, or misogynistic. He says somewhere along the way it’s become accepted as fact for some people that Conservative is a derogatory term and deserving of scorn.