Brampton, Ont. Mayor Patrick Brown said on Thursday that he would not run for the Federal Conservatives if his main rival, Pierre Poalievre, won the party’s highest position in the September presidential election.
In an interview with CBC’s Power & Politics, Brown said he is confident he can win the lead, but if he fails, he will also consider running under the party’s banner in the next election if former Quebec Prime Minister Jean Charest is defeated. MP Leslin Lewis leadership.
Brown said his personal opinion of Poilievre was not what would prevent him from running under his leadership – although the two candidates attacked each other verbally during the campaign. He said he was convinced Poilievre would transfer the party’s wealth to the Greater Toronto area.
“I could run under them, absolutely. “They have the capacity to win the next general election,” Brown told Charest and Lewis.
“With Pierre Poilievre, I just don’t believe he could win a place in the GTA. I think his message is too divisive. Even as a popular mayor in the GTA, I don’t think I could win a seat with a leader like So for me, following the federal route with Pierre wouldn’t make much sense.
Brown said that if Poilievre wins, he would consider remaining in his current job as mayor of Brampton, a city of about 600,000 people west of Toronto.
The deadline for submitting documents for re-election in this municipality is August 19 – weeks before the results of the elections of the conservative leadership become known in early September.
Brown did not say exactly why he saw Poilievre undermining the Conservative vote in the Toronto area. The mayor had previously cited Poliever’s support for banning the niqab during citizenship ceremonies and “barbaric cultural practices” as campaign obligations in the vocal-rich region.
Brown questions Poilievre’s numbers
Brown also said Thursday that he did not believe some of the membership figures released by Poilievre’s campaign.
The Poilievre team said last weekend that they had sold more than 310,000 new memberships – a staggering number which, according to his campaign, showed that their candidate could win in the first ballot.
Brown said on Thursday that he had sold more than 150,000 members before the June 3 deadline.
The Conservative Party said it has about 600,000 members eligible to vote in this leadership election, a number that could be adjusted once the party completes a vetting process to remove all duplicates.
Poilievre, left, and Brown share an exchange during the French Conservative Leadership Debate in Laval, Que., On May 25. (Ryan Remiorz / The Canadian Press)
There were already about 140,000 conservative members in good shape when the race began. If Poilievre registered 310,000 members and Brown persuaded another 150,000 to join the party, the mayor said, that means campaigns led by Charest, Lewis, Independent MP Roman Baber and MP Scott Aitichison have sold little, if any. there are some.
“If Pierre Poalier’s claims are true, essentially no one else has sold membership,” he said. “I think the other campaigns have run solid campaigns, so there’s obviously a break with the claims that Poilievre’s campaign has made.”
Brown said that in order to meet this competitive data on membership sales, the party must release a list of members for all campaigns now.
“It’s fair to have the list published so we know where everyone is,” Brown said.
Brown said Poilievre’s campaign had tried to block the move.
Burnt Land Approach
“If they had been so confident in this campaign and actually sold the membership they claimed, they would not be as worried as they are. the confidence of an alleged favorite, “Brown said.
Jenny Byrne, a former senior adviser to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a senior Poilievre campaign official, said it would be “completely against the rules” to publish a list of members before being checked by party officials. She also said Brown was not truthful about his membership figures.
“If he sold 150,000 members, release the exact number,” Byrne told CTV this week. “What Patrick Brown is doing is what he’s doing best, which is a lie.”
Ian Brody is the chairman of the organizing committee for the party’s Leadership Elections (LEOC), the body that leads this leadership race. He said Thursday that the party will draw up an interim voter list in about a month, a list that campaigns can use to reach members to persuade them to vote for a particular candidate.
Brody said the party would then send a final voter list to each campaign by July 29th.
“To be fair to all the campaigns in this race, I have to follow the rules of the party,” Brody told Power & Politics.
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