Conservative Party

Multiple text messages related to allegations that led to the ouster of Patrick Brown from the federal Conservative leadership race have been turned over to Elections Canada to investigate whether the Brampton mayor knew that a corporation was paying someone in his campaign, sources say.

Details of exactly what was in those text messages have not been revealed by the party, but the sources say there was enough evidence to forward them to the national elections body. Canada’s elections laws bar contributions from corporations, unions or non-residents.

Patrick Brown says the bizarre turn of events that led to him being disqualified from the Conservative leadership race began on June 29.

In an exclusive interview with the Toronto Sun, Brown said that’s when the party began asking a series of questions about his campaign.

After answering questions on a variety of issues, though, Brown said he was booted from the race over an anonymous allegation that an organizer was being paid by a private company to campaign for him. He said his campaign asked for details on who the organizer was, or which company was allegedly paying organizers, but said the party refused to say.

“Once again, our great city is in the national news for all the wrong reasons because of Patrick Brown,” read a scathing statement issued Wednesday morning by five city and regional councillors, claiming Brown’s disqualification in the CPC leadership race demonstrates a “clear and alarming” pattern of behaviour.

OTTAWA – Patrick Brown has been disqualified from the Conservative Party leadership race due to “serious allegations of wrongdoing” that “appear” to violate Canadian election law.

In a statement published late Tuesday, Conservative Leadership Election Organizing Committee (LEOC) chair Ian Brodie said organizers became aware of the new undisclosed allegations “in recent weeks.”

One thing about Patrick, he never disappoints. We all knew he was a douchebag and he came through.

h/t RM

Pierre Poilievre’s critics, specifically those on the left, are in a permanent state of hysteria. They have no reference point for a conservative who criticizes institutions, the “gatekeepers” that are, he says, keeping regular people from getting ahead. Nor can his critics reconcile the fact that Poilievre is appealing both to the establishment of his party, as well as to those who don’t usually participate in politics. A liberal who behaves like this is “doing politics differently,” while Poilievre is clearly a “populist” with an unsavoury agenda.

Link fixed. Alternate Link.

Shorter Marjory: Poilievre is a stinky butt!

I have been a Conservative all of my adult life, witnessing firsthand the party’s evolutions and iterations over 60 years. Throughout that time — as I went from being a secretary at party headquarters and in John Diefenbaker’s office, through years as a war horse in battles that all seemed momentous at the time, to my grateful service in the Senate of Canada — there was always a common bond that held Conservatives together as we worked in the best interests of the party and of the country.

Respected voices inside the federal Conservative Party of Canada are hinting at serious internal problems that portend a bleak future.

In fact, it doesn’t take much divining to see seismic fractures are beginning to emerge, ones serious enough to spell doom to a coalition masterfully held together by Stephen Harper but now teetering.

Last week, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner wrote a long screed outlining her reasons for deciding not to pursue the leadership of Alberta’s United Conservative Party, chief among them being a divided and dysfunctional caucus. She took the opportunity to point out her federal Tory caucus is plagued with the same problems.

“Internal problems” should be read as “OMG! There are people who actually want the conservative party to be conservative.”

A former Conservative Senate leader is expressing concern about the direction Pierre Poilievre is taking the party, worrying the Tories might be reaching the point of “fracturing beyond repair.”

In an exclusive interview with The West Block’s Mercedes Stephenson, Marjory LeBreton said Conservative leadership candidates jumping on the “grievance brigade” is doing a “disservice” not only to the party but to the country.

With the nation’s capital bracing for anticipated anti-mandate “freedom” movement protests during Canada Day weekend, interim Conservative Leader Candice Bergen says her MPs are free to attend.

“I support peaceful and legal demonstrations, and if my MPs want to be there, they’re free to do whatever they want, and they’ll answer to their constituents,” Bergen said in an interview on CTV’s Question Period airing on Sunday.

The Conservative leadership campaign took another nasty turn Thursday with two of the frontrunners trading shots over what the other calls unethical behavior. Pierre Poilievre is running television ads in Toronto attacking Patrick Brown over his actions as mayor of Brampton while Brown is accusing Poilievre of running a misleading membership sales campaign.

I think by now Brown must know he has no hope of winning, even his campaign manager has bugged out. Surely he must know his ethnic vote whoring is detestable even by today’s low standards. Still I expect more scorched earth from him.

Pierre Poilievre says he supports “all Canadians who peacefully stand up for their rights” amid reports a second so-called convoy protest is planned for Ottawa.

In a statement Tuesday, Poilievre denied claims the presumptive Conservative leadership frontrunner would greet the potential protest planned for Canada Day in Ottawa.

But he called vaccine mandates “unfair, unscientific bullying” and said he encourages “everyone to keep protesting government attacks on our freedoms.”

Supports but will not meet them. Wishy one day, Washy the next. That is so O’Toole.