Key Takeaways:
- The Conservative Party of Canada announced Patrick Brown’s withdrawal from contention for the position of party leader.
- The Conservative Party’s previous leader, Erin O’Toole, resigned on February 2 after being ousted by the majority of the caucus.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Conservative Party of Canada announced that Patrick Brown had been eliminated from consideration for the position of party leader.
At the moment, Brown is the mayor of Brampton, Ontario.
The Canada Elections Act’s finance rules were allegedly broken by the Brown campaign, according to a statement from Ian Brodie, chair of the Leadership Election Organizing Committee (LEOC), who claims Brown was disqualified after an investigation by the chief returning officer.
According to the statement, the chief returning officer requested a formal response from Brown’s campaign and withheld the interim membership list from it.
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According to Brodie, “concerns about the Patrick Brown campaign’s compliance with our Rules and Procedures and/or the Canada Elections Act were not allayed by the information supplied so far by the Patrick Brown campaign.”
As a result, the Chief Returning Officer requested that Patrick Brown be disqualified, and LEOC, earlier this evening complied.
Brodie said the Conservatives would tell Elections Canada of Brown’s alleged transgressions.
“The Chief Returning Officer and I have done our utmost to be fair to the Patrick Brown leadership campaign throughout the investigation into these claims and give them the time they need to substantively counter these charges,” says Brodie.
“We regret including to take these actions, but we are obligated to ensure that all candidates and campaign teams abide by the standards of our Party and federal law. None of these issues have any bearing on the validity of the actual vote.
As the matter is “subject to further inquiry,” Brodie decided that the Conservative Party “will not be speaking further on the subject.”
Erin O’Toole, the previous leader of the Conservatives, resigned on February 2 after the majority of the caucus voted to have him removed. This led to the current Conservative leadership election.
Brown’s campaign sent a statement on Twitter early Wednesday morning through a spokeswoman named Chisholm Pothier.
The LEOC’s “secret meeting” and decided to reject Brown, according to the campaign, were recently made public.
It states that we were neither present at the meeting nor had a chance to speak out in front of the LEOC. “Unnamed claims support this choice. Our campaign was never given access to the full text of the claims or the supporting documentation, violating even the most fundamental standard of due process.
The Conservative Party is allegedly “expecting a coronation for Pierre Poilievre,” according to the statement.
Poilievre, one of the five contenders still in the running for the leadership, was a senior cabinet minister in the administration of the late Prime Minister Stephen Harper and was a member of parliament for 7 terms.
“It was obvious Poilievre did not have the points to win this contest when the final membership statistics came in,” Brown’s team claimed. “The only way to ensure his triumph is to seek to silence Canadians and sidestep democratic norms through this arbitrary exclusion.”
The Brown campaign stated that it is currently seeking legal advice.
Source: CTV News
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