Brampton, Ontario. Mayor Patrick Brown said on Thursday that he would not run for the federal Conservatives if his main rival, Pierre Poilievre, won the party’s first seat in the September leadership election.
In an interview with CBC’s Power & Politics, Brown said he is confident he can win the lead, but if he doesn’t fall short, he would also consider running under the party’s flag in the next election if the former prime minister wins. of Quebec Jean Charest or MP Leslyn Lewis. leadership.
Brown said it was not his personal opinion of Poilievre that would prevent him from running under his leadership, although both candidates have been verbally attacked throughout the campaign. He said he is convinced that Poilievre would close the party’s fortune in the Greater Toronto Area.
“I could run under them, absolutely. They have the ability to win the next general election,” Brown said of Charest and Lewis.
“With Pierre Poilievre, I just don’t think he can win seats in the GTA. I think his message is too divisive. Even as a popular mayor in the GTA, I don’t think he can win a seat with a leader like this. He. that, for me, following the federal route with Pierre wouldn’t make much sense. “
Brown said that if Poilievre wins, he would consider staying in his current job as mayor of Brampton, a city of about 600,000 people west of Toronto.
The deadline to submit documentation for a re-election candidacy in this municipality is August 19, weeks before the results of the Conservative leadership election are known in early September.
Brown did not say exactly why he sees Poilievre undermining the Conservative vote in the Toronto area. The mayor has previously cited Poilievre’s past support for banning the niqab at citizenship ceremonies and a line of advice on “barbaric cultural practices” as electoral responsibility in the vote-rich region.
Brown questions Poilievre’s numbers
Brown also said Thursday that he does not trust some of the membership figures published by the Poilievre campaign.
Poilievre’s team said last weekend that it had sold more than 310,000 new members, a staggering figure that according to its campaign indicates that its candidate can win in the first ballot.
Brown said Thursday that it sold more than 150,000 members before the June 3 deadline.
The Conservative Party has said there are approximately 600,000 members eligible to vote in this leadership election, a figure that can be adjusted after the party completes a verification process to remove any duplicates.
Poilievre, left, and Brown share an exchange during the Conservative Party’s French-language leadership debate in Laval, Que., On May 25. (Ryan Remiorz / The Canadian Press)
There were already about 140,000 Conservative members in good condition when the race began. If Poilievre targeted 310,000 members and Brown convinced 150,000 more to join the party, the mayor said, this means that the campaigns led by Charest, Lewis, independent Roman Baber and Scott Aitichison sold few affiliations, if none.
“If Pierre Poilievre’s claims are true, essentially no one else has sold members,” he said. “I think the other campaigns did robust campaigns, so obviously there’s a disconnect with the claims that the Poilievre campaign has made.”
Brown said that to address these competing member sales figures, the party should now publish a list of members in all campaigns.
“It’s fair to have the list off because we know where everyone is,” Brown said.
Brown said the Poilievre campaign has tried to block this movement.
“Burned Earth Focus”
“If they had so much confidence in this campaign and really sold the season tickets they were saying, they wouldn’t be as worried as they are. They continue to take a scorched earth approach to our candidates and that doesn’t speak for itself. Brown.
Jenni Byrne, a former adviser to former Stephen Harper and a senior Poilievre campaign official, said it would be “completely against the rules” to publish a list of members before it was verified by party officials. He also said Brown is not sincere about his membership numbers.
“If it sold 150,000 members, post the exact number,” Byrne said in an interview with CTV this week. “What Patrick Brown is doing is doing the best he can, which is a lie.”
Ian Brodie is the chairman of the party’s leadership election committee (LEOC), the body that leads this leadership race. He said on Thursday that the party would produce a provisional list of voters within a month, a list that campaigns can use to get in touch with members to convince them to vote for a particular candidate.
Brodie said the party will send a final list of voters to each of the campaigns by July 29.
“To be fair to all the campaigns in this race, I have to follow the rules of the party,” Brodie told Power & Politics.