(OTTAWA) A spokesman for disqualified Conservative leadership candidate Patrick Brown says he will not make a decision about his re-election as mayor of the Greater Toronto Area until he has didn’t have time to talk with his friends and family.
Posted at 7:37
Chisholm Pothier says Mr. Brown spent the weekend attending a multicultural festival in Brampton, Ont., 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 baked pancakes and waved to their supporters at the Calgary Stampede, less than two months before the ballots were counted and the nominee named. winner.
Mr Brown entered the race without resigning as mayor of Brampton and has previously said he would consider running again in the mayoral election in October if he felt he could not win the federal race.
He has until August 19 to register as a mayoral candidate, but Mr Brown’s standing in the federal race changed dramatically last week when the party’s leadership contest organizing committee voted to kick him out.
Committee members ousted him by an 11-6 vote over an allegation that he violated federal election finance laws.
“He won’t make a decision until he has had time to consult with his friends and family,” Mr. Pothier wrote of Mr. Brown’s plans to run for a second term as mayor of Brampton.
Mr Brown said his campaign did nothing wrong and wants to appeal. He hired renowned lawyer Marie Henein as counsel.
Although the party has not released details of the allegation, a longtime Tory organizer came forward last week as the one who reported Mr Brown to the party, alleging he was involved in an arrangement which allowed her to be paid by a private company to work on her campaign.
Mr Brown’s campaign said the Tory leadership had refused to release full details of the allegation, which made it difficult to answer, and added that it had offered to reimburse the money paid to the organizer in question . The campaign says it believed the organizer’s work was voluntary.
Since his disqualification, Brown has also accused the party of impeaching him to favor longtime Ottawa-area MP Pierre Poilievre, considered his main rival.
Mr. Poilievre and the party have rejected his accusation.
Ian Brodie, chairman of the leadership contest committee that voted to impeach Mr Brown, emailed party members last Friday to say Mr Brown was aware of the allegations he was facing and that the party had to act because it could not afford to have a candidate under investigation for breaking federal laws.