The Conservative Party of Canada has disqualified Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown from running in the leadership race, citing allegations the financial rules of the Elections Act had been violated. The party’s leadership elections committee says it has referred the matter to Elections Canada.
Brodie says Brown’s campaign was notified of the allegations and asked for a response, but the committee hasn’t been satisfied with the information provided to date about compliance with the party’s rules and procedures and the Elections Act.
“The Chief Returning Officer has therefore recommended to LEOC that LEOC disqualify Patrick Brown and earlier tonight LEOC agreed to do so. The Party will be sharing the information it has gathered with Elections Canada, who is responsible for ensuring compliance with, and enforcement of, the Canada Elections Act,” Brodie said.
“Throughout the investigation into these allegations, the Chief Returning Officer and I have done our best to be fair to the Patrick Brown leadership campaign and provide them with the time they need to substantively refute these allegations. We regret having to take these steps but we have an obligation to ensure that both our Party’s Rules and federal law are respected by all candidates and campaign teams. None of these problems has any impact on the integrity of the vote itself.”
Brodie added that the LEOC won’t be commenting on the issue further as it is now under investigation.
Brown’s campaign said in a statement that it wasn’t provided with proper details and adequate time to respond to the allegations.
“This decision is based on anonymous allegations. Our campaign was never provided with the full details of evidence of these allegations, falling an even basic requirement of due process,” the statement said.
“In recent days, the party has been on a fishing expedition requesting information with which we have cooperated entirely through our lawyers. LEOC never particularized the anonymous allegations, contrary to its statement tonight, and even though ample time was not provided to respond to questions we still complied with every bizarre request and unsubstantiated claim.”
Brown’s campaign alleges that the party is disqualifying him because it’s “expecting a coronation” for Conservative MP and leadership contender Pierre Poilievre.
“When the final membership numbers came in, it became clear Poilievre did not have the points to win this race. The attempt to silence Canadians and skirt democratic values through this unfounded disqualification is the only way to ensure this victory was secured,” the statement said.
The Epoch Times reached out to Poilievre for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
Poilievre’s campaign says it has sold over 300,000 memberships, which would amount to half of the 600,000 party members eligible to cast a ballot in the Sept. 10 leadership vote.
Brown’s campaign says it is consulting its legal team.
