Senior leader at Thunder Bay, Ont., hospital removed after Nazi imagery discovered on his social media

WARNING: This story contains images, language that may be distressing.

The hospital in Thunder Bay, Ont., has removed a senior official from a leadership council for violating its social media policy after images of Nazi-affiliated items were discovered on his Facebook page.

Keith Taylor would also no longer be serving as the co-chair of the patient family advisory council at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC), where he had volunteered for more than a decade, a spokesperson confirmed Tuesday, citing the hospital's social media policy.

He posted more than a dozen times to his public Facebook page, mostly in 2012, with images of swastikas, a bronze sculpture of Adolf Hitler and a military badge, among other items.

One post, about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, used a slur toward people of Asian heritage; other posts made jokes about Nazis, including one comment with Taylor calling someone "my little nazi."

CBC News was first made aware of these posts Sunday, after being contacted by an employee at the hospital.

"The individual mentioned in your request is not an employee of TBRHSC, and is no longer serving in a voluntary role on the patient and family advisory council," hospital spokesperson Marcello Bernardo said in an emailed statement Tuesday morning.

Bernardo said it was an internal human resources matter, but cited the hospital's social media policy in his statement and declined further comment.

It wasn't until speaking with CBC News that Taylor said he learned he was no longer serving in the voluntary role with the hospital.

"I'm not happy about it," he told CBC. "I've probably been involved in over a thousand policy developments and changes that would benefit patients."

He added he understood the decision made by the hospital.

"I'm not a racist. I'm not a Nazi. I'm a man who cares about my community and I'm a history buff."

Taylor said he was collecting the items in hopes of opening a museum to educate people about military history. It was something he said never got off the ground, and since 2012, has donated or given away most of the items to museums or "valid collectors."

But several experts in Holocaust education and history expressed concern to CBC about the way the items were posted on social media.