A woman identifying herself as a whistleblower in the Patrick Brown campaign says she personally discussed with the Conservative leader candidate an arrangement for her to be paid by a private company.
“Mr. Brown told me that it was permissible for me to be hired by a company as a consultant and then for that company to have me volunteer for the campaign,” said a statement released by Debbie Jodoin’s attorneys.
“He put me in touch via text message with a third party for this purpose. I trusted him, but as time went on I became increasingly concerned about the arrangement and suspected it was wrong.”
Jodoin says she began working as a regional organizer for Brown’s campaign in May at his request and has more than two decades of experience with the Conservative Party.
Jodoin shared his concerns with the Conservative Party through his legal counsel, the statement said.
On Tuesday, the Conservative Party’s Leadership Elections Organizing Committee (LEOC) disqualified Brown from the leadership race, citing “serious allegations of wrongdoing” related to funding rules.
Brown denied any suggestion of wrongdoing and said he had not received details of those allegations from the party before being rebutted.
A campaign offered to reimburse the company
In response to Jodoin’s statement, the Brown campaign stood by its claim that the leadership panel had not provided specific information about the allegation.
But now the Brown campaign says they identified Jodoin to the LEOC as a possible source of the allegation and say the commission never responded.
“The details have now been made public, long after the investigation and disqualification, in a clearly orchestrated effort,” campaign spokesman Brown Chisholm Pothier said in an email.
“This party is a clown car,” Potier wrote.
A letter sent by the Brown campaign to the LEOC about Jodoin and obtained by the CBC says she approached Brown about working on his campaign. The letter said Brown referred her to a friend for work instead, but Brown suggested the volunteer work for his campaign would not be done during company hours.
Brown’s campaign is offering to reimburse the company that paid Jodoin, according to the letter.
Brown initially blamed his removal from the race on members of the Conservative Party establishment and supporters of leadership candidate Pierre Poillievre, who he said worked to disqualify him from the leadership race because they feared his progressive approach to conservatism would win .
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