Brampton Mayor Brown will vote for Charest if Conservative leadership challenge fails, accepts anyone but Poilievre

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown’s campaign says he’ll vote for Jean Charest in efforts to stop Pierre Poilievre from becoming leader of the Conservative party, casting doubt on their candidate’s likelihood of overturning this disqualification from the race.

The Brampton mayor was kicked from the leadership contest last week after a whistleblower alleged campaign workers received payments from a third party.

On Tuesday (July 12), Brown’s campaign team emailed supporters saying the Brampton mayor plans to vote for former Quebec premier Charest on the ballot, and encouraged others to decide for themselves among the remaining candidates following Brown’s ouster.

It says that while Brown continues to pursue “all legal options” to appeal the party’s decision to boot him from the race, it admitted for the first time since the disqualification that likely won’t happen before the party picks a new leader Sept.10.

“If that is the case, Patrick has been clear he would support any new leader … except Pierre Poilievre. If it comes to that, he will be voting for Jean Charest,” his message read.

Brown has said he was never provided with “full details or evidence of these allegations,” while the Conservative leadership committee says it reached out to Brown’s campaign for a written response but was not satisfied with what they received back.

The mayor has been under increased scrutiny in both the federal and municipal arenas, with Brown and four of his Brampton City Council supporters skipping recent meetings in an attempt to block the appointment of an interim city councillor.

The Ontario Superior Court ruled this week that a motion to preemptively appoint the councillor was illegal under the Ontario Municipal Act.

Brown still has time to run again for mayor of Brampton before the October municipal election should his challenge fail and he is unable to re-enter the CPC race.

Poilievre and Brown have been rivals since the CPC race began, with Brown campaigning on the fact Poilievre ran for re-election with the party in 2015 when it promised to ban face coverings during citizenship ceremonies and establish a tip line for so-called “barbaric cultural practices.”

Brown’s campaign said it sold 150,000 memberships, although party headquarters hasn’t validated that figure or any others publicized by the five remaining campaigns.

By comparison, Poilievre has said he sold 312,000 memberships.

Although headquarters hasn’t confirmed specific membership sales from each campaign, it has recorded a voting base of more than 670,000 members, more than double what it had for the 2020 leadership race.

Brown’s name will still appear on the final ballot, which the party will use to pick a leader by asking members to rank the candidates from their first to last choice, with the party still finalizing a plan for what will happen to votes that go his way.

Party spokesman Yaroslav Baran said as of Tuesday, more than 280,000 ballots had been delivered, with another large batch scheduled to be dropped in the mail by the end of the week.

With files from The Canadian Press