OTTAWA — Patrick Brown has been kicked out of the federal Conservative leadership race after ballots have already started being mailed out and his campaign is fighting back against what he calls anonymous allegations.
“This is reprehensible, undemocratic behavior that shatters the faith of hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have embraced Patrick Brown’s vision of a modern, inclusive Conservative party,” his campaign said in a written statement early Wednesday morning.
“This is an indictment of the (Conservative Party of Canada) and a party that is not serious about winning a general election,” the Brown campaign continued.  “It’s a shame.  But not for us.”
Ian Brodie, chairman of the organizing committee for the leadership election, announced the surprise move late on Tuesday night, saying the party had learned of “serious allegations of wrongdoing” by the Brown campaign.
The allegations relate to funding rules under the Canada Elections Act, Brody said in a written statement, but did not elaborate.
In his statement, Brody said the chief returns officer for the party informed Brown, who is the mayor of Brampton, Ont., of the concerns and asked for a written response.  He also decided to withhold the provisional membership list from his campaign.
Brody said the response from Brown’s campaign did not address the concerns and the returning officer recommended the election’s organizing committee disqualify him, which it chose to do in a vote held at a meeting Tuesday night.
Brody said the party will share what it has with Elections Canada.
He said both he and the party’s returns chief did everything they could to be fair to Brown, who is a former leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, and allow time to rebut the allegations.
“None of these problems have any bearing on the integrity of the vote itself,” Brody said.
“While we felt it was important to provide a transparent response to party members regarding this matter, because this matter is now subject to further investigation, we will not be speaking further on the matter.”
The Brown campaign disputed this characterization of the process.
“This decision is based on anonymous allegations.  Our campaign was never provided with the full details or evidence of these allegations, failing a key requirement of the event for due process,” her statement said.
He accused the party of going on a “fishing spree” and not giving the campaign “plenty of time” to respond, but said it “still complied with every outlandish request and baseless claim”.  He also said the campaign learned of the exclusion, and the meeting where the decision was made, through the media on Tuesday night.
The campaign said it was consulting with its legal team.
The Brown campaign also accused the party of making that decision to favor Pierre Poilievre, the longtime Ottawa-area MP who is considered a front-runner in the race — and Brown’s primary opponent.
“Attempting to silence Canadians and undermine democratic values ​​through this baseless blockade is the only way to ensure his victory,” the statement said.
As of late Tuesday night, the Poilievre campaign had not commented on the news.
The Conservatives will announce the winner of the leadership race in Ottawa on September 10.
The other candidates in the race are Conservative MPs Leslyn Lewis and Scott Aitchison, as well as former Quebec premier Jean Charest and Roman Baber, a former Independent member of the Ontario legislature.
A party spokesman said Tuesday night that a large batch of ballot packets had already been mailed to members.
Last week, the party said around 675,000 members had registered to vote for a new Conservative leader.  The party described it as an unprecedented number for any federal political party.
The voting base in 2020, when Erin O’Toole was elected leader, was about 270,000 members.  Earlier this year, the party said it had 161,000 active and current members across Canada.  About 48,000 of those were scheduled to expire by the June entry deadline.