Patrick Brown disqualified from Conservative leadership race, party officials say

The Canadian PressPublished Tuesday, July 5, 2022 11:11PM EDTLast Updated Tuesday, July 5, 2022 11:25PM EDT

The Conservative Party of Canada’s leadership election organizing committee says it has disqualified candidate Patrick Brown from the race to replace Erin O’Toole in the top job.

Election committee chair Ian Brodie says in a statement the party became aware of “serious allegations of wrongdoing” by Brown’s campaign that appear to violate financing rules in the Canada Elections Act.

The statement did not provide further details on the allegations and the Brown campaign was not immediately available for comment.

Brodie says the chief returning officer informed Brown of its concerns and requested a written response, deciding to withhold the interim membership list from his campaign. 

He says the response from Brown’s campaign did not satisfy the concerns and the chief returning officer recommended the leadership election organizing committee disqualify him, which it opted to do.  

Brodie says the party will be sharing what it has with Elections Canada and not be commenting further. 

He says in his statement both he and the party’s chief returning officer did their best to be fair to Brown and provide time to refute the allegations.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 5, 2022.