‘Throwing mud’
Bernier calls rival O’Leary a loser as Tories investigate vote-rigging claims
The presumed front-runners in the federal Conservative leadership race are going for each other’s jugular, with Maxime Bernier dismissing Kevin O’Leary as a “loser” after the celebrity businessman levelled accusations of fraud and vote-rigging.
O’Leary issued a statement late Thursday accusing an unidentified campaign of trying to buy its way to the top by using untraceable prepaid credit cards to sign up “fake” party members without their knowledge, contrary to party rules.
Sources say Bernier’s campaign is the alleged culprit; the party is now investigating the allegations. But Bernier fired back Friday, pulling no punches in a bluntly worded fundraising email to party members.
“Kevin O’Leary is a loser. I’m Conservative leadership candidate Kevin O’Leary speaks at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.
a winner,” Bernier said. “He knows my campaign has raised more money, signed up more members, has more supporters and more volunteers. He’s a bad candidate. Instead of trying to win people over by putting out
a platform, he’s throwing mud to try to save his campaign.”
While he’s been building “an army of supporters,” Bernier said O’Leary has been “vacationing in Florida, filming in L.A. and shilling on a home shopping channel trying to sell his line of O’Leary wine to American buyers. It’s not even available in Canada.”
O’Leary, meanwhile, issued his own statement in an attempt to enlist the other candidates in his fight against what he says is a fraudulent membership scam concocted by “sketchy insiders.”
“I applaud the Conservative party for launching an investigation, but that is not enough,” he said. “Today, I am asking the 13 other candidates to put politics aside. I am calling on you to join together with me to fight back against this scam by demanding the party throw out these falsified memberships.”
The alleged scheme involves people on the Ontario Progressive Conservative party membership list being signed up as members of the federal Conservative party, possibly without their knowledge.