The Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidate Jean Charest accuses rival Pierre Poilievre of exaggerating his membership count, calling the statement “Pierreinflation”.
The former Quebec Prime Minister says the Poilievre campaign’s claim that 311,958 Canadians have so far signed up to support his team is “all around”.
“At the right pace, we call it ‘Pierreinflation’ when it comes to hiring members. I think he has recruited members in the state of Maine and New Hampshire if you want to follow his logic … Keep inflating the numbers, no one believes in the numbers, “he told the CTV question period.
Charest would not specifically say how many members he has acquired his base, arguing that the number is irrelevant, as the race is ultimately reduced to a points system.
“You can have 10,000 members in one equestrian, it’s worth 100 points … If you have 100 members in another equestrian, it’s worth 100 points. That’s 100 points per race, “he said.
“We based our campaign on having a broad nationwide support base in all traffic because that’s how the race was designed so that whoever won would have the widest support base in the entire country.”
Patrick Brown is the only other candidate to have posted his membership count so far in the race, noting that it is 150,000.
Last week, Conservative Party chief executive Wayne Benson said candidates had to wait for “more than” 600,000 members to vote to decide which of them should take over the party’s top office.
During the 2020 leadership race, the party had 269,469 eligible voters.
Due to the record number of potential voters, the party said it has “a few weeks behind in terms of processing” the list of members to be able to send candidates before a new leader is elected on September 10th.
However, National Council President Robert Batherson confirmed in a separate interview in CTV’s question period that the time period is still viable.
“We are more than ready to do our internal verification, do the processing, make sure there is a preliminary list so that the leadership campaigns can verify for themselves and challenge them and then have this final list on which we will base the the voting packages come out, “he said.
Charest said he and other campaigns have called for an interim list to be sent urgently.
“If we don’t have access to the membership list so we can campaign, reach out and persuade them, what’s the point?” He said.