Activist feels shut out of leadership race

CAMBRIDGE — A local conservative activist says he’s being shut out of the race to choose the next leader of the Ontario PC Party.

Jim Karahalios, a corporate lawyer and prominent Tory organizer, is upset he can’t throw his name into the leadership contest because of a new rule he believes was drafted specifically to exclude him.

Karahalios contends that a new clause in the leadership rules released by the party Wednesday night forces all candidates to support the 2017 policy process — a process Karahalios argues violated the party’s constitution. “I’m in disbelief,” he said. “They’re making it impossible for me to put forward a credible campaign,” he said.

Karahalios, behind the Take Back Our PC Party and Axe the Carbon Tax campaigns, was getting calls from some of the party’s grassroots supporters to vie for the Tory leadership.

But he says that’s impossible now, whether he wanted to run or not.

A party spokesperson reached for this story declined to comment on Karahalios’ situation.

The other problem for any potential leadership aspirations is that Karahalios still doesn’t have a membership in the party — that was stripped from him last fall by the party’s executive after his repeated criticism of policy decisions.

With a sex scandal causing the sudden departures of two rivals, former leader Patrick Brown and party president Rick Dykstra, it appeared the Tories might be softening their approach to Karahalios.

But a decision on his membership status has been repeatedly delayed, which he says leaves him little time to run in a five-week leadership campaign.

Karahalios believes party members loyal to Brown and Dykstra are still stacking the deck against him.

He’s calling on other leadership candidates to speak out against the clause that’s keeping him from the race, and wants an end to a “secret” nomination committee he says is compromising the integrity of the leadership contest.

“They should all be stepping forward and saying these rules are offside, and they need to be struck,” he said. “I’m in disbelief at the aggressive embracing of a corrupt process … It’s a farce.”

Karahalios is also dealing with an ongoing legal dispute with the party that kicked him out. In December, he beat a lawsuit launched by the party executive, and is seeking $140,000 in legal costs and damages.

The party has countered that Karahalios is only owed $25,000, and has appealed the judge’s decision.