PCs drop lawsuit against local activist Karahalios
CAMBRIDGE — The Ontario PC party has dropped its lawsuit against a Cambridge conservative activist, saying the legal battle was an unnecessary waste of members’ money.
The decision appears to be redemption for Jim Karahalios, the local lawyer who had been a vocal critic of what he saw as corruption during the regime of ousted leader Patrick Brown.
Last fall, the party went after him for his campaigns that attacked Brown’s inner circle, booting him from its convention, stripping his membership and taking him to court.
On Thursday, the party’s interim leader Vic Fideli expressed regret for all of that, even thanking Karahalios for his calls that PC riding nominations should be open, public and democratic.
“No PC Party activist conducting grassroots campaigns in accordance with our Party’s constitution, should ever have to go through what Mr. Karahalios went through,” Fideli said, in a statement.
He called the lawsuit against Karahalios, which a judge dismissed in December as an attempt to limit debate on matters of public interest, as “frivolous” and “vexatious.”
Under Brown, the party had appealed the judge’s decision, and were planning an extended legal battle. That ended this week when the party settled out of court with Karahalios and dropped the suit.
“It is regrettable that the PC Party even commenced this lawsuit; it should not have been pursued in the first place,” he said.
Karahalios said the decision was a relief, and hoped the party would continue to probe nomination contests where there have been allegations of voter fraud.
He called the decision to reopen the races in Ottawa WestNepean and Scarborough-Centre a “good first step,” but said all contested nominations need to be reopened “to restore integrity in our PC Party.”
Karahalios thanked Fedeli for “leading our party out of this dark period in its history,” and said he was happy to put the lawsuit behind him.
“This is done now,” Karahalios said. “Vic is dealing with stuff head-on, and he’s doing a really good job. That’s how leadership works.”
But Karahalios, president of Cambridge’s federal Conservative riding association, still doesn’t have his membership in the provincial party back. That could happen at a meeting of the party’s executive later this month, according to Kevin Weatherbee, the party’s regional vice president for this area.
The interim leader called Karahalios a party “loyalist,” and said members’s donations should have never been used to fund legal fights against fellow conservatives.
“When hardworking Ontario families donate to the PC Party, their support is intended to help us win election campaigns, not fight lawsuits,” he said.
Karahalios said there were times during his fight with the party that he began to wonder why more Tories weren’t speaking out against what looked like irregularities in nominations around the province.
“You start questioning, are my values about fair voting so offbase that what I’m saying isn’t important to anyone?” he said.
Karahalios isn’t feeling like such an outsider anymore.
His other campaign, to abandon a carbon tax that been a key part of the Tory platform, has now been embraced by all four candidates seeking the party leadership.