Brown quits race to get old job back
Exits barely a week after entering contest
Just over a month ago, Patrick Brown was the leader of a Progressive Conservative party poised to regain power in Ontario after 15 years, yet a relatively little-known figure.
Name recognition is not an issue for him any more.
Brown added another bombshell Monday to four dizzying weeks of upheaval for the Tories, unexpectedly pulling out of the leadership race launched when he quit the same job in January.
Brown had entered the contest barely a week ago, arguing his reputation had been cleared of the sexualmisconduct allegations that forced him to resign in the first place.
But in a statement issued late Monday, Brown said he was unable to continue, given the burden of refuting false and “slanderous” misconduct charges, and the toll that vying for the leadership has taken on those close to him.
A source in his campaign said he and his loved ones have faced a barrage of death threats and other harassment from those angry that he had joined the election.
“I can no longer stand as a candidate in our party’s leadership race,” Brown said in the message posted on his Twitter account.
“I simply cannot run a provincial party leadership campaign and, if successful, square off against ( Premier) Kathleen Wynne in the most important election in a generation, while at the same time continuing my fight to prove that the allegations are lies.”
He said his situation also posed too much of a distraction from the party’s push to replace the Liberal government with a “pragmatic, moderate, fiscally responsible alternative.”
Vic Fedeli, who took over as the interim Conservative leader after Brown’s resignation Jan. 24 and has been frankly critical of Brown’s tenure in the job, welcomed the announcement Monday.
“I want to thank Patrick Brown for making the right decision for himself and the Ontario PC Party,” Fedeli said in a curt statement. “He is right to focus on clearing his name.”
Skeptics speculated there could be other reasons for his second exit: an inquiry into unproven charges of unethical behaviour announced the same day by Ontario’s integrity commissioner, sexual- misconduct allegations that haven’t disappeared despite Brown’s vigorous denials — or some unknown controversy lurking in the wings.
Regardless, the decision added another twist to an Ontario political season like few others.
“We left the known universe several weeks ago,” said pollster Greg Lyle of Innovative Research Group. “This is all new.”
Chris Cochrane, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, said the only similar political drama he could recall was Pierre Trudeau’s surprise decision to run for prime minister again after the fall of the Conservative minority government in 1980, but even that “wasn’t close.”
He said one troubling aspect of the affair was a conference call on Jan. 24 in which PC caucus members talked of the need for Brown to resign — mere minutes after the allegations were broadcast on CTV. It suggests the knives were out for him, said Cochrane.
“You see very clearly from the transcript of the conference call there was no principle in the room at all, it was pure panic and self interest,” said the political scientist. “They were just absolutely out to get him, immediately.”
Brown’s departure could still be positive for the party as it prepares for the June 7 provincial election, removing a controversial distraction, but the Tories are not out of the woods, said Lyle.
The remaining leadership candidates must explain how they can pay for the Tory platform without the carbon tax Brown had promised, while their current lead in the polls is far from insurmountable, he said.
Brown, 39, quit under pressure early the morning of Jan. 25, after CTV aired a story in which two women accused him of sexual misconduct 10 years ago when he was a federal MP.
He has strenuously denied t he allegations, is suing the network for libel and claiming that his name was cleared when some holes were knocked in the women’s stories.
Shortly after Brown stepped down, the party called a leadership contest to replace him, with voting scheduled to start Friday and end March 8, the result to be announced March. 10.
Just over a week ago, Brown stunned Ontario politics by entering that race himself. His rivals were former legislative member Christine Elliott, businessman and former municipal politician Doug Ford, lawyer Caroline Mulroney and parents’ advocate Tanya Granic Allen.
Internal polling released to the National Post over the weekend suggested that Brown was doing surprisingly well, tied for the lead with Elliott and gaining strength.
But one campaign official said the final straw was the harassment of his family, especially the effect on his mother. She was admitted to hospital with chest pains Sunday, apparently tied to anxiety over the situation.
Individuals have stood outside family homes in Barrie, Ont., and screamed obscenities, accusing him of undermining the Conservative party, the campaign official said.
“I can take a punch, but it stings when it is unfairly directed at the people I love instead of me,” Brown said in his statement. “It pains me to cause them this difficulty.”
He singled out a woman he called his “partner,” apparently referring to Genevieve Gualtieri, the 23- yearold mentioned in recent media reports as his current girlfriend.
“She never signed up to be in the public eye, yet she ended up on the front page of the Toronto Star, and the subject of an irresponsible report by a rogue MPP,” Brown said.
Brown has called the allegations “entirely fictional.”