Patrick Brown to remain on Conservative leadership ballots despite disqualification
Despite being disqualified by the Conservative Party of Canada from becoming its next leader, ousted candidate Patrick Brown's name will still appear on the ballot.
In an interview on CTV News Channel, Conservative Party President Rob Batherson said they "simply don't have the time to do a reprint,†of hundreds of thousands of ballots and still meet the party’s set deadline for announcing a new leader on Sept. 10.
Last week, the party announced approximately 675,000 members will be eligible to vote in this year’s leadership race, a historic number far exceeding past leadership races.
While the final membership verification process is still underway, according to the party's leadership contest spokesperson Yaroslav Baran, the first batch of mail-in ballots with all six names on it have already been sent out to Conservative supporters who had memberships pre-dating the leadership race process.
The party is set to continue mailing out ballot packages in batches over the next several weeks, with the requirement that all ballots be returned to the party by Sept. 6.
The party had an April 29 deadline for candidates to submit the required fees and membership signatures in order to make it on to the ballot as a verified candidate. This timing was a factor in their print deadlines for the ballots.
Questions over whether Brown would still be on the ballot came after the Conservative Leadership Election Organizing Committee (LEOC) announced late Tuesday night it had decided to disqualify Brown, citing “serious allegations of wrongdoing†that they were referring to federal elections authorities.
In an interview with CTV News’ Evan Solomon on Wednesday, Brown sought to fight back against what he called "phantom" allegations, claiming his campaign "did nothing wrong." Brown also indicated he was assessing his options to challenge being removed from the race. However, Batherson told CTV News that the party’s rules “do not provide for appealing a disqualification decision.â€
This isn't the first time in recent years that the party has ran a leadership election featuring a candidate's name on the ballot that was no longer in the running.
In 2017, then-leadership hopeful Kevin O'Leary withdrew from the race after the ballots were printed.
"So the ballots will go out—as they did with Kevin O'Leary's name on it in 2017—and with a preferential ballot, there will be second and third choices. That will be applied once a candidate drops off the ballot," said Batherson on Wednesday.
Despite this considerable shakeup in the race, Batherson said the party has no plans to delay the process in any way, and all current timelines will stand, including naming the winner at an event in Ottawa on Sept. 10.
As for what Brown still appearing on the ballot may mean when it comes to how Conservative party members decide to fill out their ranked ballot, Conservative strategist and president of Texture Communications Melanie Paradis said in an interview on CTV News Channel that it’ll be something to watch. Brown had previously said his campaign had signed up approximately 150,000 members.
“It's going to be very interesting to see how this shakes out. Where do those voters go? The people that he recruited, do they go anywhere? Or are they going to drop off? In which case, that would completely change the math on the points in each riding,†Paradis said.
“It's a really complicated algorithm. It's not a very straightforward one-member-one vote, kind of set of rules. We have it weighted by riding, and that makes things very difficult to predict and how this could impact the race.â€
With files from CTV News' Sarah Turnbull, Mike Le Couteur, and Evan Solomon
IN DEPTH
Jagmeet Singh pulls NDP out of deal with Trudeau Liberals, takes aim at Poilievre Conservatives
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has pulled his party out of the supply-and-confidence agreement that had been helping keep Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's minority Liberals in power.
'Not the result we wanted': Trudeau responds after surprise Conservative byelection win in Liberal stronghold
Conservative candidate Don Stewart winning the closely-watched Toronto-St. Paul's federal byelection, and delivering a stunning upset to Justin Trudeau's candidate Leslie Church in the long-time Liberal riding, has sent political shockwaves through both parties.
'We will go with the majority': Liberals slammed by opposition over proposal to delay next election
The federal Liberal government learned Friday it might have to retreat on a proposal within its electoral reform legislation to delay the next vote by one week, after all opposition parties came out to say they can't support it.
Budget 2024 prioritizes housing while taxing highest earners, deficit projected at $39.8B
In an effort to level the playing field for young people, in the 2024 federal budget, the government is targeting Canada's highest earners with new taxes in order to help offset billions in new spending to enhance the country's housing supply and social supports.
'One of the greatest': Former prime minister Brian Mulroney commemorated at state funeral
Prominent Canadians, political leaders, and family members remembered former prime minister and Progressive Conservative titan Brian Mulroney as an ambitious and compassionate nation-builder at his state funeral on Saturday.
Opinion
opinion Don Martin: Gusher of Liberal spending won't put out the fire in this dumpster
A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the Trudeau government’s three-week travelling pony-show, the 2024 federal budget takes aim at reversing the party’s popularity plunge in the under-40 set, writes political columnist Don Martin. But will it work before the next election?
opinion Don Martin: The doctor Trudeau dumped has a prescription for better health care
Political columnist Don Martin sat down with former federal health minister Jane Philpott, who's on a crusade to help fix Canada's broken health care system, and who declined to take any shots at the prime minister who dumped her from caucus.
opinion Don Martin: Trudeau's seeking shelter from the housing storm he helped create
While Justin Trudeau's recent housing announcements are generally drawing praise from experts, political columnist Don Martin argues there shouldn’t be any standing ovations for a prime minister who helped caused the problem in the first place.
opinion Don Martin: Poilievre has the field to himself as he races across the country to big crowds
It came to pass on Thursday evening that the confidentially predictable failure of the Official Opposition non-confidence motion went down with 204 Liberal, BQ and NDP nays to 116 Conservative yeas. But forcing Canada into a federal election campaign was never the point.
opinion Don Martin: How a beer break may have doomed the carbon tax hike
When the Liberal government chopped a planned beer excise tax hike to two per cent from 4.5 per cent and froze future increases until after the next election, says political columnist Don Martin, it almost guaranteed a similar carbon tax move in the offing.
CTVNews.ca ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½
Recall issued for 38,000 GM vehicles in Canada over software safety glitch
Transport Canada has issued a recall for 38,000 General Motors (GM) vehicles for safety risks related to a software glitch, the agency reported in a notice on Wednesday.
Top Hezbollah commander among 12 killed in Israeli strike on Beirut
Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander and several members of the group's elite Radwan unit in an airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday, the Israeli military and a security source in Lebanon said, sharply escalating the year-long conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group.
11-year-old boy dies after subway surfing in NYC
An 11-year-old boy died Monday after subway surfing in New York City. He's the fourth person to die from subway surfing in the city this year.
Since she was a young girl growing up in Vancouver, Ginny Lam says her mom Yat Hei Law made it very clear she favoured her son William, because he was her male heir.
Secret Service report details communication failures preceding July assassination attempt on Trump
Communication breakdowns with local law enforcement hampered the Secret Service's performance ahead of a July assassination attempt on former U.S. president Donald Trump, according to a new report that lays out a litany of missed opportunities to stop a gunman who opened fire from an unsecured roof.
Canadians say they fear they've been scammed out of thousands of dollars by car moving company
An Ontario man says he’s still waiting for a vehicle he purchased on Kijiji to be delivered to his home. But after more than a month, he says he’s losing hope that the car will arrive and believes that he is a victim of a scam.
An Ontario man says it is 'unfair' to pay a $1,500 insurance surcharge because his four-year-old SUV is at a higher risk of being stolen.
DEVELOPING Here's what we know about Israel's latest strike in Beirut
Israel’s military has struck the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, in a dramatic escalation in a year-long period of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
The province's public security minister said he was "shocked" Thursday amid reports that a body believed to be that of a 14-year-old boy was found this week near a Hells Angels hideout near Quebec City.
Local Spotlight
They say a dog is a man’s best friend. In the case of Darren Cropper, from Bonfield, Ont., his three-year-old Siberian husky and golden retriever mix named Bear literally saved his life.
A growing group of brides and wedding photographers from across the province say they have been taken for tens of thousands of dollars by a Barrie, Ont. wedding photographer.
Paleontologists from the Royal B.C. Museum have uncovered "a trove of extraordinary fossils" high in the mountains of northern B.C., the museum announced Thursday.
The search for a missing ancient 28-year-old chocolate donkey ended with a tragic discovery Wednesday.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is celebrating an important milestone in the organization's history: 50 years since the first women joined the force.
It's been a whirlwind of joyful events for a northern Ontario couple who just welcomed a baby into their family and won the $70 million Lotto Max jackpot last month.
A Good Samaritan in New Brunswick has replaced a man's stolen bottle cart so he can continue to collect cans and bottles in his Moncton neighbourhood.
David Krumholtz, known for roles like Bernard the Elf in The Santa Clause and physicist Isidor Rabi in Oppenheimer, has spent the latter part of his summer filming horror flick Altar in Winnipeg. He says Winnipeg is the most movie-savvy town he's ever been in.
Edmontonians can count themselves lucky to ever see one tiger salamander, let alone the thousands one local woman says recently descended on her childhood home.