OTTAWA –
Patrick Brown has been disqualified from the race to replace Erin O’Toole as leader of the Federal Conservatives, the organizing committee for the leadership election announced Tuesday afternoon.
Ian Brodie, the chairman of the committee, announced the impressive move in a written statement saying the party had become aware in recent weeks of “serious allegations of wrongdoing” by Brown’s campaign.
The allegations are related to the funding rules of the Canada Elections Act, Brodie said, but did not provide further details.
The Brown campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night. Brown’s most recent tweet, which is Mayor of Brampton, Ontario, was about campaign events in New Brunswick.
In his statement, Brodie said the party’s returning director informed Brown of the concerns, requested a written response and decided to retain the list of interim members of his campaign.
Brodie said Brown’s campaign response did not meet concerns and the returning director recommended that the election organizing committee disqualify him, which he chose to do.
Brodie said the party will share what it has with Elections Canada.
He said both he and the party’s general manager did their best to be fair to Brown, who is a former leader of Ontario’s progressive conservatives, and give time to refute the allegations.
“None of these issues have any impact on the integrity of the vote itself,” Brodie said.
“While we found it important to give a transparent answer to party members on this issue, because now this issue is subject to further investigation, we will not talk about it further.”
The Conservatives will announce the winner of the leadership race in Ottawa on September 10th.
The other five candidates for the race are Pierre Poilievre, Leslyn Lewis and Scott Aitchison, all Ontario Conservative MPs, as well as former Quebec Prime Minister Jean Charest and Roman Baber, a former independent member of the Ontario legislature. .
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 5, 2022.