Ontario PC Party reviewing Khattra’s membership list

Husband of Calgary dentist suggests campaign may not be over

CAMBRIDGE — The Ontario PC Party has scrutinized hundreds of new memberships signed up by controversial Cambridge candidate Tanya Khattra, as conflicting reports circulate over whether her campaign is actually over.

Khattra, who was reportedly told last week she was ineligible to run over concerns she wasn’t living in the province, had been the Tories’ leading candidate to win the nomination in Cambridge.

Now Khattra is clinging to the fact she’s not had an in-person interview to discuss her candidacy, and has not been formally disqualified.

Her husband’s lawyer insisted no decision had been made about her candidacy, contradicting MPP Michael Harris and multiple party insiders.

“To be very clear the Party has not ruled Dr. Khattra ineligible, disqualified her from running, or anything of the sort,” reads an email from Blair Yorke-Slader.

In a bizarre twist, the Calgary dentist took down her campaign website and Facebook page this week — but a campaign volunteer said the campaign was still ongoing, despite a statement to CBC to the contrary.

The website and Facebook page were merely taken down for editing, the volunteer said.

Khattra’s husband and de facto spokesperson, Raman Khatra, refused to answer questions about the campaign, dismissing them as “gossip” and told a reporter to “cease and desist” writing about it.

He maintained he was unaware of any decision about Khattra’s candidacy. As proof, he sent an email that appeared to be from the party’s regional co-ordinator, Costas Manios, who wrote on Wednesday that the provincial nomination committee “will be inviting Dr. Khattra to an interview should she wish to continue her quest in (the) nomination process.”

As the party probed the legitimacy of the roughly 1,500 names Khattra’s campaign had signed up, far more than any other candidate in the riding, someone in Khattra’s camp also sent a revised membership list to PC headquarters on Wednesday.

The volunteer said the new list was sent because of a formatting issue, not because of any irregularities.

Khattra’s ability to sign up hundreds of new local supporters in a membership blitz had raised eyebrows among those who’ve spent years working on local nominations.

“I think we’ve all had concerns right from day one,” said Ron Dancey, vice-president of the Cambridge PC riding association.

“Time will tell whether they get vetted properly, and how many survive.”

Many of the memberships from Khattra’s original list were rejected by the party because they didn’t include the fee a person must pay to be a member of the PC party.

Dancey has seen the original membership list sent from Khattra’s campaign, but said it wasn’t formatted properly so he couldn’t check for duplication. He’s confident party staff in Toronto will be able to catch any obvious red flags.

“If you find 25 people in one two-bedroom bungalow, you know there’s something wrong,” he said.

If Khattra is out, those memberships that pass the vetting process and are deemed real can be moved to support one of the remaining candidates in the race.

“I’m fairly confident the party will be thorough. Those memberships, the ones that are deemed legitimate, will still be counted,” Dancey said.

It’s believed those remaining memberships would be enough to swing the outcome of the race that now includes Sunny Attwal, Bert Laranjo and party leadership contender Tanya Granic Allen.

Christine Elliott, another PC leadership contender, also says she’s considering running in Cambridge, among a handful of other ridings around the province where a candidate has not yet been chosen.

The party’s interim leader, Vic Fedeli, has ordered staff to probe irregularities on its membership list.

That came after former leader Patrick Brown claimed the party’s ranks had swelled in excess of 200,000 members — a number that in reality was closer to 130,000.

Two weeks ago, Khattra’s campaign manager and communications consultant quit over the residency issue.

They said the dentist, who is still living in Calgary, told them she wouldn’t move to Cambridge unless she wins the nomination.