With Toronto's mayoral by-election just three weeks away, one controversial candidate and former journalist is picking up steam in the polls despite being slammed for his comments on immigrants in a 2016 opinion piece for Postmedia. 

Political commentator Anthony Furey is currently in fourth place in Toronto's mayoral race, according to Forum Research's latest weekly poll. Interestingly, Furey was unable to land in the pool of top six candidates throughout April and most of May, but a June 2 poll shows support for the polarizing candidate has risen to 10 per cent. 

In a recently-resurfaced 2016 column, titled Identity politics 'is now pushing us further apart' for Postmedia, Furey discusses Brexit as well as former U.S. President Donald Trump. 

"This is the problem we're seeing all over. The battle over Brexit. The ferocious passions held both for and against Trump. Even the warring responses to the nihilistic mass murder by an Islamist in Orlando. What do they have in common? They're all filling a vacuum that was created by the rise of moral relativism in the West," Furey wrote. 

Toronto, it’s time for real change.

Vote Anthony Furey on June 26. pic.twitter.com/BQU83eCBVl

— Anthony Furey (@anthonyfurey) May 25, 2023

"Canada won't go tough on ISIS, but our human rights courts go tough on comedians who make crude jokes. The list goes on. These are not the pursuits of a serious nation, but one in decline," he continued. 

"The world is changing. The American Century is over. Europe as we know it is over, as migrants with high birthrates pour in with little strategy in place to integrate them." 

An article by PressProgress regarding Furey's comments on migrants picked up traction on Reddit, with many respondents criticizing the politician for his stance. 

"Is he worried about becoming a minority? Gee why? Have they not always been treated well or something?" one person asked. 

"That's a stupid strategy in a province full of very highly educated immigrants," another person noted. 

Other responses called the comments "gross" and "disgusting." 

Furey also raised some eyebrows for comments he made in a 2018 opinion piece for the Toronto Sun, titled, "We need to talk about immigration – on this, Hillary and Harper agree," where he discusses his thoughts on a United Nations agreement called the Global Compact on Migration. 

"The UN and its advocates will tell you it’s just about countries putting their heads together to collectively solve international problems," wrote Furey.

"But critics are rightly concerned that this will instead result in globalists badgering recipient countries to reduce their border controls even more than they've already done and to set their intake targets not on what their national policies deem wise but on what bureaucrats at the UN demand," he continued. 

Furey would go on to say that "the notion that any legitimate concerns about illegal immigration amount to racially motivated attacks on all immigration is one of the most boneheaded and obviously false ideas that progressive politicians and their media allies have peddled in recent years." 

"Canadians might be more welcoming of something like a global deal to efficiently manage the comings and goings of immigrants and refugees if they hadn't repeatedly been misled and browbeaten about the issue, if they didn't feel like it was all a set-up to take away their sovereignty."