Since being kicked out of the leadership race earlier this month for alleged violations of campaign finance laws, Brown has repeatedly claimed his ouster was due to corruption within the party and collusion with the leadership frontrunner’s campaign Pierre Poilievre. Both the party and Poilievre’s campaign deny this. “The party would have engineered everything to get me out of the race,” Brown told CBC News Network’s Power & Politics on Monday. “Unfortunately the federal Conservative Party didn’t want to have a competitive election. They didn’t want to have a fair and free election,” he told host Vassy Capello. “They have a coronation in mind and I don’t think that’s good for the party.” Brown made the remarks hours after announcing he would run for a second term as mayor of Brampton, Ont., although he initially said his group was seeking a legal challenge to his exclusion from the Conservative leadership election. WATCHES | “No wrongdoing,” in the campaign, Brown says:
Patrick Brown refers to the exclusion from the federal Conservative leadership race
Brampton’s mayor announced Monday that he is seeking re-election, just weeks after being kicked out of the federal Conservative leadership race. Brown said there was “no wrongdoing” in his federal campaign, but said he is now focused on Brampton. “We’re still pursuing legal options. I think it’s important that Canadians know what happened here,” he said. “Having said that, I think it’s very clear, when ballots have been mailed out for weeks, that they’ve hurt the ability to have a fair election.” Brown said there was no way he could run a competitive campaign when party members had been told he had been disqualified and was in the middle of a legal challenge.
Voting for Jean Charest
After he was kicked out of the party, Debbie Jodoin, a former regional organizer on the Brown campaign, alleged through her attorney that Brown arranged to work on his campaign through a third party. The chairman of the Conservative Leadership Elections Organizing Committee (LEOC) said the party had been trying to get Brown’s campaign to comply with federal election laws and leadership rules for almost a week, but the effort had failed. In a message to Conservative members, LEOC chairman Ian Brodie said “the party has delivered [Brown’s campaign] every opportunity to clarify and resolve” the party’s concerns. “Along with our party attorney, I have been personally committed for most of the week to finding a way to bring Patrick Brown’s campaign into compliance with our rules and federal law,” Brody said in the email. Brown said leadership contenders Jean Charest and Scott Aitchison shared centrist values that could propel the party into government, but he had already decided who to vote for. “I have said in a campaign appeal by many organizers around the country that I will vote for Jean Charest, I believe he would be the best choice for the Conservative Party at this time,” Brown said. “I think at this point Jean Charest has the best chance to beat Pierre Poilievre.”
