The Conservative Party is seeking to ban the use of prepaid credit cards to buy membership, after Pierre Poalievre warned that they could be used to fraudulently buy leadership.
The party quickly reversed its stance on the use of prepaid credit cards on Thursday after the Poilievre camp demanded they be banned and the party canceled any membership purchased with them on February 2nd.
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“The party (and the Conservative Fund) will not accept prepaid membership cards or donations for this leadership race,” Wayne Benson, the party’s chief executive, wrote in a note on leadership campaigns received from Global News.
Benson said the party would cancel memberships purchased with prepaid cards back by Feb. 2, as the Poilievre camp insists.
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“We will soon be issuing instructions for co-operation plan campaigns to allow legal membership to be revoked as a result of this retroactive change.”
It was a major turnaround for the party, which told management on Monday that it would continue to accept prepaid cards. Benson did not state a reason in his note of conversion.
Asked to comment on Thursday night, Benson told Global News he had nothing to add to the note.
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On Tuesday, Global News reported that Poilievre’s campaign had sent a lawyer’s letter to the Conservative Party, warning of potential membership fraud using prepaid credit cards.
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To join the Conservatives – and have the right to choose their next leader – Canadians must reduce a check by $ 15 or pay by credit card to the party. The use of prepaid credit cards to buy membership is a constant problem due to fears that the leadership campaign may buy “fake” memberships and tip the scales in the competition.
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The Poilievre camp did not offer any evidence of fraud, but strongly hinted that they were concerned about Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, who had previously likened the purchase of membership to a “street walk”.
A spokesman for the campaign, Brown, said Thursday that they “do not accept membership using prepaid cards” and that the move does not “affect our sales” of membership.
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But Jeff Silverstein said the fact that the party was making “changes to the rules retroactively” at Poilievre’s request was “interesting.”
“Poilievre’s campaign will be disappointed to learn that it will not be able to disqualify any of our registrations,” Silverstein said in a statement to Global News.
“Patrick Brown’s campaign is focused on signing thousands of new Conservative members, unlike Team Poilievre, who are looking for ways to disqualify Canadians from participating.
However, Poilievre seems to be the only candidate concerned about prepaid cards. A source in the Conservative leadership who was not involved in Poalievr’s campaign told Global News that the move was “good news for the fairness of the election and the integrity of the list of members.”
Conservative leadership candidates must submit $ 300,000 in fees and guarantees by the end of the month to get to the polls and enroll members by June 2 to vote for them. The next Conservative leader will be elected on September 10.
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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