Conservatives under fire for ‘meddling’ in riding vote
Party accused of political gamesmanship in Cambridge nomination
CAMBRIDGE — Ontario’s PC Party is refusing to say why it abruptly cancelled a local vote to pick a candidate in Cambridge, as questions fly about the legitimacy of hundreds of new memberships signed up in the riding.
The nomination meeting to choose a candidate to represent the Tories in Cambridge was supposed to be held Saturday, March 24, at St. Benedict’s Catholic Secondary School.
But without warning on Thursday, the party’s headquarters in Toronto cancelled that meeting — without giving local candidates or the riding association any explanation. No new date has been set.
Prakash Venkataraman, a longtime PC organizer in Cambridge, called the latest move “an insult” to candidates who have been campaigning for many months to win the nomination. “It’s time for the party to be transparent and stop meddling in local elections. We have all had
enough,” he said. “We must unite and move toward victory on June 7, not continue the political gamesmanship that seems to be plaguing our PC Party of late.”
The decision has caused concerns the party is planning to appoint its own candidate in the riding. It’s even prompted the wife of prominent party activist Jim Karahalios to say she’s considering running, too.
“Our riding of Cambridge deserves a local candidate who can best represent our own families and taxpayers,” said Belinda Karahalios.
“That is why I am considering running as a candidate for the PC nomination in Cambridge. We deserve someone who understands our community and will fight with us and for us.”
Some are speculating that the move to postpone the nomination meeting has something to do with the need to further scrutinize the legitimacy of the 2,500 PC memberships sold in Cambridge, far more than any other local riding.
The party also announced Thursday it was reopening controversial nominations in Brampton North, Mississauga Centre and Newmarket-Aurora races, and setting aside the nomination in Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas.
But unlike those nominations, no one was appealing the Cambridge contest. And concern about memberships doesn’t explain why the party needed to cancel the March 24 nomination meeting, rather than just scrutinize voters when people showed up to cast their ballots.
The candidate blamed for submitting allegedly suspect memberships in Cambridge, Calgary’s Tanya Khattra, long ago dropped out of the race. Her candidacy caused an outcry last fall, after party headquarters once again cancelled the local nomination meeting without explanation.
Adding to the intrigue is that two former PC leadership candidates, Christine Elliott and Tanya Granic Allen, are eyeing the riding as a potential avenue to a seat in the legislature.
Granic Allen is one of three people who were approved to seek the nomination in Cambridge, but hasn’t said publicly whether she actually intends to run. The other two, Bert Laranjo and Sunny Atwall, were caught off guard by the sudden interference from party headquarters.
Granic Allen is owed a favour by new leader Doug Ford, since it was her support that gave him the leadership. Some think the decision to cancel the Cambridge nomination was intended to buy her time to shore up support in the riding.
Venkataraman, who quit as Khattra’s campaign manager in January, argues the former leadership candidate has every right to seek the nomination in Cambridge. But she should do so openly and fairly, and let voters choose if she’s the best person for the job, he said.
“If Tanya Granic Allen wishes to run for the nomination in a democratic nominee race, alongside the two current candidates, that is her right. But if the PC party plans to ask the other candidates to step aside so Granic Allen can stand unopposed, it will not fly,” he said.
Last month, Granic Allen raised concerns about the more than 2,000 memberships signed up in Cambridge by Khattra — urging the party to throw them out. “The individuals identified on the membership applications, if legitimate, were seemingly deceived into joining the PCPO on a fraudulent basis,” reads a letter sent by her campaign to the party’s Chair, Rules and Appeals Board.
Granic Allen argued that because Khattra lives in Calgary, she was ineligible to run for election in Ontario, and memberships signed up by her campaign should be discredited.
Her appeal was denied, and the members Khattra signed up were allowed to vote in the leadership race that ultimately picked Doug Ford.
Elliott, meanwhile, has said she’s considering running in Cambridge — but the race would need to be reopened for her to enter. She fared the best in the riding during the leadership contest, pulling in 273 first-round votes, compared to 147 for Ford, 139 for Granic-Allen and 75 for Caroline Mulroney.
It’s not clear if Karahalios will be able to enter the race. The Cambridge mother, whose background is in the private and notfor-profit sectors, says she will make a formal decision in the coming days.
She adds her family suffered “retribution” for her husband’s grassroots campaigns around carbon tax and corruption — ideas that became key themes in the recent leadership race.
“My family is invested in our community and in this fight. In fact, I am proud of my husband, Jim Karahalios, and the fact that he withdrew from his pursuit to run as our PC candidate in order to defend PC grassroots members,” she said.
“We deserve a local candidate who is invested in our community for the long-term and will work to return Cambridge to a Progressive Conservative blue victory on June 7.”
Elliott is also reportedly looking at other ridings for a potential seat, including those recently overturned in Brampton and Mississauga.
They’re among about a dozen PC nominations across the province that ended in controversy. Two others, Scarborough Centre and Ottawa West-Nepean, were already overturned after allegations of ballot fraud.