Stephanie Taylor , The Canadian Press Published Tuesday, July 12, 2022 1:16 PM EDT Last Updated Tuesday, July 12, 2022 7:27 PM EDT
OTTAWA — Patrick Brown’s campaign says it is “highly likely” Brown’s efforts to challenge the federal Conservatives’ decision to disqualify him from the leadership race will fail and that he will vote for Jean Charest to lead the party.
On Tuesday night, the campaign team shared a statement with the media that it plans to send to supporters after a call the night before that Brown had with more than 100 organizers and others who have helped his candidacy.
The campaign said Brown was continuing to pursue “all legal options” to appeal the party’s decision to remove him from the race – but admitted for the first time that it likely won’t happen before party members elect a new leader on 10 September.
It said Brown was clear: he would back any leader except long-time MP Pierre Poilievre, who was his main rival.
His campaign says Brown plans to vote for Charest. He encouraged his supporters to choose for themselves which of the five remaining candidates would be the best leader.
Brown’s campaign says he also considers Leslyn Lewis a “friend” and applauds Scott Aitchison for taking political stands to fight Quebec’s controversial secularism law, which Brown also opposes.
“Killing our campaign does not kill the vision we have for the party,” the note to supporters read.
“We’ll make it eventually.”
His campaign’s message to supporters comes after John Reynolds, a former lawmaker who served as Brown’s campaign co-chairman, came out in support of Charest.
But whether Brown’s supporters — many of whom appear to be new to the party — will choose to follow suit is not necessarily so clear.
“It’s going to come down to how much work (Brown and his organizers) want to continue to put into this race,” said political strategist Chris Chapin, who previously worked in Brown’s office when he was Ontario’s official opposition leader. .
In a statement released by Charest’s campaign, Reynolds said the former Quebec premier is the best choice to unify the party when its divisions within the caucus and the broader movement are on full display.
“We’ve had too much negative publicity lately, so we need to offer Canadians a positive, united and inclusive Conservative Party with a new, time-tested leader,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds did not mention Brown by name or the disqualified candidate’s planned appeal.
But since Brown’s sudden firing a week ago, the situation has consumed the attention of the party leadership, along with many members and some organizers of other campaigns.
The chairwoman of the committee that voted to kick Brown out of the race said she did so on the recommendation of the party’s chief returning officer, based on an allegation that Brown may have violated federal election laws.
A longtime organizer has since come forward as the one making the allegation, saying Brown was involved in an arrangement that saw a private corporation pay for her campaign work.
After his disqualification, Brown said his team had done nothing wrong and accused the party of refusing to provide full details of the incident when first asked to explain. He has also hired renowned lawyer Marie Henine to seek an appeal.
But unless Brown is reinstated, what will happen to the supporters he signed up as new party members is one of the main unresolved questions in the race.
His campaign said it had sold 150,000 memberships, although party headquarters did not confirm that figure or others released by the five remaining campaigns.
By comparison, longtime MP Pierre Poilievre said he had sold a whopping 312,000 memberships.
Brown’s name will still appear on the final ballot the party will use to choose a leader, asking members to rank the candidates from first to last choice.
That means supporters can still pick Brown as their top choice, and so the party is finalizing a plan to share with members what will happen to votes that might go in his favor.
At a news conference earlier Tuesday in Brampton, Ont., where he has not yet revealed whether he plans to seek a second term as mayor, Brown deflected questions about his federal campaign. He said it was a matter for his lawyer.
Brown’s strategy in the race was to try to recruit new members to the party, rather than trying to curry favor with existing ones — who he believed were more likely to support Poilievre and his populist message.
He aimed to sign up thousands of immigrants and newcomers, promising to build a more inclusive party. He has declared himself an ally on specific issues they care about, from improving cricket infrastructure to reforming the immigration system.
How much of Brown’s vote goes to Charest will depend on whether Brown and his campaign team work to convince supporters to switch allegiances to the former Quebec premier, Chapin said.
“These members signed up for Patrick,” he said.
Because Brown ran a campaign that often seemed at odds with some party positions — delisting the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organization, for example — Chapin said it would be difficult to convince supporters to support a different candidate who has not made similar promises.
Party spokesman Yaroslav Baran said on Tuesday that more than 280,000 ballots had been delivered, with another large batch scheduled to be mailed by the end of the week.
While headquarters has not confirmed specific membership sales from each campaign, it has registered a voting base of more than 670,000 members, more than double what it had for the 2020 leadership race.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on July 12, 2022.
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