[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[HVC]

And a bit grabby, IIRC

[viper37]

Not a great loss.  Then again, not one of them is suitable to be party leader.

No concern about a party kicking out a candidate who had a shot at defeating the extreme right wing favourite, based only on an unproven allegation?

Oh, please, let's stick to reality.
Published yesterday:
https://www.westerlynews.ca/news/poilievre-continues-to-lead-polls-2-months-out-from-conservative-leadership-race-vote/

PP: 44%
Charest: 14%
Brown: 4%.

A shot at defeating Poilièvre?  Sure, just like anyone else.  But it was a long shot, a very long shot.

As for the allegations:

Another source said there were "serious" allegations that at least one private company may have been contributing towards paying the salary of Brown campaign staff.

[...]
In his statement, Brodie said the chief returning officer for the party informed Brown, who is the mayor of Brampton, Ont., of the concerns and requested a written response. He also decided to withhold the interim membership list from his campaign.

Brodie said the response from Brown's campaign did not satisfy the concerns and the chief returning officer recommended the leadership election organizing committee disqualify him, which it opted to do with a vote held at a meeting Tuesday evening.

Brodie said the party will be sharing what it has with Elections Canada.

He said both he and the party's chief returning officer did their best to be fair to Brown, who is a former leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, and provide time to refute the allegations.

https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/patrick-brown-fights-back-after-barred-from-conservative-leadership-race

Should we wait until the investigation is complete?  Ideally, yes.
But the vote will be held on September 10th.  It's soon.  And Brown was given ample time to justify himself.  Who brought the allegation is quite irrelevant.  Who's paying for the staff members is what is important.  If he can't answer that question, it raises doubt on his campaign financing.

Do we run the leadership race with unanswered questions about who's financing one of the candidates, when specific allegations have been made that at least one staff member is being paid by a private corporation in total violation of Election Canada rules?  What good are rules if they can be set aside when they become inconvenient? 

[viper37]

Not a great loss.  Then again, not one of them is suitable to be party leader.

No concern about a party kicking out a candidate who had a shot at defeating the extreme right wing favourite, based only on an unproven allegation?

A crypto bro is also a right wing extremist.

Crypto bros are often anarchists.  Right wing or left wing, but anarchists at heart.

[crazy canuck]

Not a great loss.  Then again, not one of them is suitable to be party leader.

No concern about a party kicking out a candidate who had a shot at defeating the extreme right wing favourite, based only on an unproven allegation?

A crypto bro is also a right wing extremist.

Describing PP as merely a crypto bro is not doing him justice.  He wants to convert Canadian currency to crypto. 

[Barrister]

Man oh man, that's quite a twist in the CPC leadership race.

While fringe candidates have often been weeded out at the front end, I can't ever think of an example of a leadership candidate being forced out so late in the day.

The CPC is going to have to come out with a pretty detailed explanation about why this happened, and fairly soon.

And for what it's worth, both the Brown and Pollievre campaigns came across as hildish in their responses.  Only Charest (sigh) took a leaderly "well lets see what this is all about" response.

[Jacob]

It's not exactly a good look, no.

In related news, from chats with some of my Conservative family it seems that the line on Poilievre is moving from "yeah he's not good I don't like him" to "the liberal media is unfairly maligning him". So the rally around the leader effect is definitely going to happen, I expect.

[Barrister]

It's not exactly a good look, no.

In related news, from chats with some of my Conservative family it seems that the line on Poillievre is moving from "yeah he's not good I don't like him" to "the liberal media is unfairly maligning him". So the rally around the leader effect is definitely going to happen, I expect.

Well there is an element of that as well.

I mean look at this thread.  PP has said some silly stuff about cryptocurrencies, but contrary to what CC said he's never suggested replacing the dollar with crypto.

Certainly if you're a right-leaning Canadian Pollievre is going to look a lot better once he's standing next to Trudeau and Singh come election time.

[viper37]

Certainly if you're a right-leaning Canadian Pollievre is going to look a lot better once he's standing next to Trudeau and Singh come election time.

It's not exactly achievement-of-the-year.

[crazy canuck]

For PP to look appealing you need to be so right leaning you are about to tip over.

[viper37]

For PP to look appealing you need to be so right leaning you are about to tip over.

Compared to Trudeau, he looks likes a rocket scientist.

Anyway.
'Everybody' thought allegations against Patrick Brown were 'serious': Party source

The committee wanted Elections Canada to investigate, but some wanted to wait until that investigation was done before deciding on Brown's fate, a source said

OTTAWA – The seemingly divided committee vote to disqualify Patrick Brown from the federal Conservative leadership race Tuesday night was split more along lines of process than over the seriousness of the allegations against Brown, a senior party source told National Post.
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Despite the 11-to-six vote by the Leadership Election Organizing Committee (LEOC) to disqualify Brown, the entire committee believed they were looking at serious and substantiated allegations against Brown.

The source also said Brown was offered a chance to meet with the party to clear up the concerns, but declined.

"Everybody felt these allegations were serious and should be referred to Elections Canada" for investigation, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about internal deliberations.

The source said everyone on the committee wanted Elections Canada to investigate, but some preferred to wait until that investigation was complete before deciding on Brown's fate in the leadership race.
Article content

Specifics about the allegations that led to Brown's disqualification have not been made public. But Brown confirmed Wednesday what several sources have also told National Post, that the allegation against him was that a corporation had paid members of his campaign staff, a violation of Canadian election law, which prohibits corporate donations.

The source said committee members felt they had no choice but to get the Elections Commissioner involved.

"The party has limits on what we can investigate," they said.

The source who was familiar with LEOC's deliberations said committee members are aware their decision will be challenged by Brown in the courts, but they felt they had serious, credible and documented proof that Brown had breached not only the party's rules, but Elections Canada's legislation.
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In an interview with National Post, Brown said his campaign was alerted to the party's concerns but couldn't get any details.

"We asked for details of who, what corporation, and we would look into it and none of those details were provided. And so we were very much shocked by what happened," he said. "We said provide us the details. And if warranted, we would pay back any hours that were during work hours they weren't aware of."

Brown said he was asked to send staff or himself to meetings about the issue and chose to send staff.

He said he believes his ouster was driven by leadership rival Pierre Poilievre's campaign. As evidence he cited Poilievre had run television ads targeting him and had generally feared his rise in the leadership contest.
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"I think Pierre Polievre was worried that he was losing his grip on this leadership race. That we had sold so many memberships, that he was nervous."

Poilievre's campaign denied any involvement.

Anthony Koch, a Poilievre spokesperson, said it's not surprising to see him lash out.

"As should have been expected, in the hours since the decision, Patrick has lashed out at our campaign and the party. As always, when caught, Patrick tries to make himself into a victim," he said.

    The party doesn't have the resources to do these kinds of investigations

Based on numbers Polievre has released his campaign sold more than 300,000 memberships, compared against the more than 150,000 memberships Brown has said he sold.

Brown said pushing him out this late, will hurt the party's credibility.

"You can't disqualify a serious contender mere days before ballots being sent out."
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He said he would be examining his options and deciding what to do next in due course.

Yaroslav Baran, a spokesperson for the Conservative party, said he doesn't know anything about LEOC's internal deliberations but said the party has a responsibility to take serious allegations seriously.

"The party doesn't have the resources to do these kinds of investigations," he said. "We can't do a LEOC grade sanction, like a $20,000 fine, for what appears credibly to be a potential transgression of federal election law."

Brown's exit from the race will leave Conservative MPs Polievre, Leslyn Lewis, and Scott Aitchison, alongside former Quebec Premier Jean Charest and former Ontario MPP Roman Baber in the race.

The party will leave Brown's name on the ballot because some have already been sent out. Results are expected to be announced on Sept. 10.

It still does not look as bad as CC wants it to be.

[crazy canuck]

Allegations being serious does not mean the same thing as the allegations being true.

But why let a small thing like procedural fairness stand in the way of PP winning?

[Jacob]

I guess the Conservatives are keen to demonstrate that they're not going to campaign on things like transparency and integrety and opposition to opaque back-room dealings by political operators. A bit puzzling, to be honest, since I thought they were pretty keen to attack Trudeau along those lines.

[viper37]

Allegations being serious does not mean the same thing as the allegations being true.

But why let a small thing like procedural fairness stand in the way of PP winning?

Serious allegations about made about campaign financing.
Inquiries are made.
Brown is offered a chance to assist himself and cooperate or send someone else.
He sends someone else and refuses to volunteer any information.
The party transfers the file to Elections Canada and votes on the issue: do we allow him to continue at the risk or having it blow on our face come election time?

It is a pretty simple matter, really. 
CPC: "Did a private corporation pay for your staffer, Mr Brown, yes or no?"
Brown: "You hate me because I stand against against corruption and money laundering in canadian casinos owned by Chinese businessmen"
CPC:" Mr Brown, if some of your staffer were paid by a private corporation, in violation of finance campaign rules, we will pay back the corporation(s), but we need to know right now who was paid and to what amount, if that is true"
Brown: "You're Poilièvre's stooge, doing his dirty work, because I support a carbon tax"


Really, that is what has happened, from what I have read.  Unless you have evidence of a nefarious plot against Brown.  If a candidate is accused of something as straightforward as this, he should have come clean.  It could have been a simple mistake.  Party reimburse the funds, makes deal with Brown for the rest, case closed.

This is not the Liberal Party of Canada, campaign finance violations can not be trifled with.

[viper37]

I guess the Conservatives are keen to demonstrate that they're not going to campaign on things like transparency and integrety and opposition to opaque back-room dealings by political operators. A bit puzzling, to be honest, since I thought they were pretty keen to attack Trudeau along those lines.

On the contrary, it is total transparency: the matter has been referred to Elections Canada who will investigate.

[crazy canuck]

Allegations being serious does not mean the same thing as the allegations being true.

But why let a small thing like procedural fairness stand in the way of PP winning?

Serious allegations about made about campaign financing.
Inquiries are made.
Brown is offered a chance to assist himself and cooperate or send someone else.
He sends someone else and refuses to volunteer any information.
The party transfers the file to Elections Canada and votes on the issue: do we allow him to continue at the risk or having it blow on our face come election time?

It is a pretty simple matter, really. 
CPC: "Did a private corporation pay for your staffer, Mr Brown, yes or no?"
Brown: "You hate me because I stand against against corruption and money laundering in canadian casinos owned by Chinese businessmen"
CPC:" Mr Brown, if some of your staffer were paid by a private corporation, in violation of finance campaign rules, we will pay back the corporation(s), but we need to know right now who was paid and to what amount, if that is true"
Brown: "You're Poilièvre's stooge, doing his dirty work, because I support a carbon tax"


Really, that is what has happened, from what I have read.  Unless you have evidence of a nefarious plot against Brown.  If a candidate is accused of something as straightforward as this, he should have come clean.  It could have been a simple mistake.  Party reimburse the funds, makes deal with Brown for the rest, case closed.

This is not the Liberal Party of Canada, campaign finance violations can not be trifled with.

Yeah, exactly-matter referred to an appropriate body for investigation and decision.  In the meantime a kangaroo court ousts him?  The Conservatives have just demonstrated they cannot be trusted.

It does them no good to argue, but what about....

Anyone who has an understanding of the necessity of procedural fairness and transparency in a decision like this should be a bit embarrassed if they are a member of that party.