Patrick Brown wants investigation into possible ‘misleading’ maneuvers by Poilievre

Patrick Brown’s national campaign co-chair John Reynolds sent a letter Thursday to the leadership election organizing committee asking it to investigate emails sent by the Poilievre team before last month’s deadline to to sell membership cards for $15.

The Conservative Party had ruled that Canadians who want to elect the next leader had to be members in good standing by June 3.

Team Poilievre says it alone has sold nearly 312,000 membership cards, including some 119,000 in Ontario.

But in his letter, Mr. Reynolds alleges that his team received a number of complaints of party members who said they bought a new card after receiving what appeared to be a official-looking warning of the Poilievre team, which indicated that their membership status was incomplete. This email apparently stated that it was from the Poilievre team.

A spokesperson for the Poilievre team said the email in question was forwarded to people who, according to our own recordswere not party members. We would have no advantage in registering someone who was already a member, wrote Anthony Koch. These people would still only have the right to vote once.

Mr. Poilievre also asked the party to reveal the number of membership cards that his team had managed to sign, which the authorities have so far refused to do.

Candidate teams expect to receive the national voters list around July 4, about a month after the deadline to become a Conservative Party member. In the meantime, the Conservatives are preparing to manage a possible list of more than 600,000 voters, a record for the party.

The team of MP Leslyn Lewis, who finished third in the 2020 leadership race, also raised concerns about the possible existence of tens of thousands duplicate memberships, and believes emails from the Poilievre team may have contributed to these duplicates.

Another factor lies in the delays in processing new membership cards at party authorities, said Mike Coates, president of Jean Charest’s team.

In his own letter to the Leadership Election Organizing Committee, Mr Coates argues that some activists who had purchased a first membership card bought a second one because they still had not received confirmation by the deadline. .