OTTAWA — A spokesman for disqualified Conservative leadership candidate Patrick Brown says he won’t be making any decisions about running for re-election as a Greater-Toronto-Area mayor until he has time to talk with his friends and family.
Chisholm Pothier says Brown spent the weekend attending a multicultural festival in Brampton, Ont., located about 45 minutes from Toronto, and celebrating the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
Meanwhile the five remaining candidates in the race to become the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada flipped pancakes and greeted supporters at the Calgary Stampede, with less than two months to go until ballots are counted and the winner is named.
Brown entered the race without resigning his job as Brampton’s mayor, and previously said he would consider running again in October’s municipal election if he thought he couldn’t win the federal race.
He has until Aug. 19 to register as a mayoral candidate, but Brown’s position in the federal race changed dramatically last week when the party’s leadership election organizing committee voted to boot him from the contest.
Committee members ousted him in an 11 to six vote over an allegation that he breached federal election financing laws.
“He isn’t making any decisions until he has time to consult with friends and family,” Pothier wrote of Brown’s plans to seek a second term as Brampton’s mayor.
Brown has said his campaign did nothing wrong and is seeking an appeal, hiring high profile lawyer Marie Henein as his counsel.
While the party didn’t release details behind the allegation, a longtime Conservative organizer came forward last week as the one who reported Brown to the party, alleging he was involved in an arrangement that saw her get paid by a private company for doing work on his campaign.
Brown’s campaign said Conservative party brass refused to release the full details of the allegation, making it difficult to respond, and said it offered to reimburse the money paid to the organizer in question because it thought their work was done as a volunteer.
Since his disqualification, Brown has also accused the party of removing him to stack the odds in favour of longtime Ottawa-area MP Pierre Poilievre, seen as his main rival.
Both Poilievre and the party have dismissed his accusation.
Ian Brodie, chair of the leadership election organizing committee that voted to remove Brown, emailed party members last Friday to say Brown knew the allegations he was facing and the party needed to act because it couldn’t afford to have a candidate under investigation for breaking federal laws.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 11, 2022
Stephanie Taylor, The Canadian Press
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