Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown disqualified from Conservative leadership race, party says

The mayor of Brampton Patrick Brown that is running for the federal Conservative leadership has been disqualified from the CPC leadership election.

In a statement by Ian Brodie, Chair, Leadership Election Organizing Committee:

“In recent weeks, our Party became aware of serious allegations of wrongdoing by the Patrick Brown campaign that appear to violate the financial provisions of the Canada Elections Act. Following our Rules and Procedures for the 2022 Leadership, the Chief Returning Officer notified the Patrick Brown campaign of the allegations and asked for a written response.

He also withheld the interim membership list from the Patrick Brown campaign.

“The information provided to date by the Patrick Brown campaign did not satisfy concerns about their compliance with our Rules and Procedures and/or the Canada Elections Act. The Chief Returning Officer has therefore recommended to LEOC that LEOC disqualify Patrick Brown and earlier tonight LEOC agreed to do so.

The Party will be sharing the information it has gathered with Elections Canada, who is responsible for ensuring compliance with, and enforcement of, the Canada Elections Act.

“Throughout the investigation into these allegations, the Chief Returning Officer and I have done our best to be fair to the Patrick Brown leadership campaign and provide them with the time they need to substantively refute these allegations. We regret having to take these steps but we have an obligation to ensure that both our Party’s Rules and federal law are respected by all candidates and campaign teams. None of these problems has any impact on the integrity of the vote itself.

“While we felt it important to provide a transparent response to Party members about this matter, because this issue is now subject to further investigation, we will not be speaking further on the subject.”