Memo questions party spending under Brown
Newly minted PC leader Fedeli vows action after confidential letter from party fundraiser
Progressive Conservative interim leader Vic Fedeli is moving quickly to tackle allegations of questionable party spending during the Patrick Brownera, the Star has learned.
Fedeli, elected Friday by Tory MPPs, was spurred to act after a blistering confidential memo was sent to members of the PC Ontario Fund on Saturday morning by Ottawa businessman Thom Bennett, a respected party fundraiser.
Bennett alleged that while Brown — who resigned Thursday after a sex scandal allegedly involving teens — was leader, the PC party executive was wasting money on costly lawsuits and rewarding allies with contracts.
“It’s important that our caucus have a very serious look at the accusations that are made in the letter,” Fedeli told the Star on Saturday after taping Global News’ Focus Ontario.
Asked if it’s “time to clean house,” the interim leader replied: “I don’t want to jump the gun. We need to take this very seriously and be decisive in our actions going forward.”
Fedeli said Bennett is “a very credible, lifelong PC party member” who has sounded alarm bells.
In his internal memo, the Ottawa insurance executive stressed that the party, which is believed to have spent more than $1.5 million on legal fees and settlements involving contentious candidate nomination contests, needs to turn off the taps.
“I want to make a motion stating that all payments of funds to reimburse lawyers defending legal suits against the PC Party of Ontario cease — immediately,” wrote Bennett.
“We must stop this bleeding — nay gushing of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the PC Ontario Fund — and it must be stopped now.
“I want a list of our PC Party of Ontario executives who are on the payroll of the PC Party of Ontario, or firms doing business with or paid by either of the PC Party of Ontario or PC Ontario Fund.”
Bennett wrote that he is concerned there may be members of the party executive who are in a “conflict of interest” due to payments for legal work, research or other services.
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario president Rick Dykstra, who announced Friday that the Tories would elect a new permanent leader before the June 7 election, did not return messages seeking comment.
But Bennett’s letter reveals a schism between the caucus and the party executive over that decision to hold an expensive and potentially divisive leadership contest so close to a provincewide campaign.
“I am at a total loss as to what the thinking could be that our executive would tell our elected MPPs — those soldiers who are putting their name in front of the electorate time after time — to screw off, we run this party,” Bennett wrote.
“The executive knows why they overruled our elected representatives — and it has nothing to do with letting the members have a say in the new party leadership. I fear that this executive decision spells the death knell of the PC Party of Ontario! The majority of our supporters do not understand nor back this stupid and self-serving decision.”
Dykstra stressed Friday that allowing the party’s 200,000 members to vote on a new leader will enable them to turn the page after a tumultuous week that saw Brown forced to resign.
Brown stepped down hours after CTV revealed alleged sexual impropriety involving two unnamed women when they were teenagers and he was a Conservative MP.
While Brown denied the allegations in an emotional 81-second statement at Queen’s Park on Wednesday night, senior aides quit en masse and caucus told him he had to go. Friends say he remains “shellshocked” and in seclusion.
At the same time, the race to succeed him is both heating up and thinning out.
Fedeli, a self-made millionaire and former North Bay mayor, said he is eager to be full-time leader. He currently boasts the unanimous backing of the caucus at Queen’s Park.
Caroline Mulroney, a lawyer and rookie candidate running in YorkSimcoe, is building support. Many of Brown’s former top advisers have joined her nascent campaign. Her father, former prime minister Brian Mulroney, is working the phones to rally backers.
Rod Phillips, former head of Civic Action and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, is also assem- bling a formidable team of veteran Tories — many from outside the Brown orbit. A first-time candidate, but a veteran senior Queen’s Park and Toronto city hall operative, Phillips is running in Ajax.
Another potential leadership hopeful is grassroots activist Jim Karahalios, founder of Axe The Carbon Tax and Take Back Our PC Party, who recently won a legal case against the party that a judge ruled was a SLAPP case — a strategic lawsuit against public participation.
Karahalios is seeking $143,500 in damages and costs. The party, which is appealing the ruling, claimed he used their members’ lists to contact Tories. That ongoing appeal is one of the lawsuits that Bennett feels is a waste of money.
Former federal foreign affairs minister John Baird, meanwhile, has decided not to mount a leadership bid. Baird, also a former provincial cabinet minister, had been under intense pressure to run.
Conservative MP Lisa Raitt, another would-be contender, said Saturday she will stay in federal politics.