I’m running because I owe it to you

Inside the mind of candidate Patrick Brown

A statement by Patrick Brown, the former and possibly future leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario who was cleared to run on Wednesday, as imagined by Andrew Coyne:

Four weeks have passed since that memorable press conference where I announced that, in light of accusations of serious sexual misconduct on my part on more than one occasion, I would be staying on as your leader.

What a journey we have all been on since then! First my entire staff quit, then most of the caucus demanded I quit. Then the caucus appointed a new leader. But then the party president insisted the new leader should be elected by the members at large. Then he quit.

I said then that I wanted to clear my name. Well here we are, four weeks later, and would you believe it, my name has already been cleared! Or at any rate I have not been charged with any criminal offence. Which appears to be enough for the party’s nomination committee.

So now I’m officially a candidate in the race to replace me. Granted, it’s a little unusual to be campaigning for a job from which I was lately forced to resign, fresh from being kicked out of the caucus I hope to lead.

But now that I’ve passed the background check, I intend to run as — what else — the unity candidate. I’m running for leader to unite this great party against those who would divide it over, say, the issue of my leadership.

You know, the insiders, the elites, the party establishment, they don’t want me in this job. Neither do the media, the business community, or most of the caucus. Also a goodly number of the candidates, and much of what remains of the party membership, an internal audit having found tens of thousands fewer members than I claimed.

They all want to stop me from reclaiming what is rightfully mine. Let them try. They can lie, and they can defame me. But the truth will come out. And the truth is that no degree of humiliation can deter me. I can endure any amount of rejection. I am beyond shame.

You’d have to be, given the amazing string of false accusations that have been levelled against me in recent days, in what was obviously a plot by unknown insiders or possibly outsiders to take me down.

First it was falsely reported that I made crude and unwelcome sexual advances on two drunken teenagers, one of whom was still in high school, the other my employee. Well, as we later learned, the first one was actually out of high school by then. So that settles that.

Then they said I quit as leader. But I never authorized anyone to say that! Someone just sent out a statement over my name without my knowledge. So technically I’m still leader, if you really want to get into the legalities of it. Which I don’t! Yet!

And now, now they’re saying that I’m unfit to hold office. Someone leaked to the press an affidavit in which I allegedly agreed to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in return for my Aeroplan miles, my part-ownership in a local restaurant, my baseball-card collection and a used hibachi, from a man who was later installed unopposed as a party candidate.

Well I have another affidavit, sworn out not five days later, that says the events described in the first affidavit never happened. Just the kind of affidavit cancelling affidavit people swear out all the time in the normal course of doing business together.

How can you be sure the second affidavit is legit? Glad you asked. I have recently taken a lie-detector test, in which I was specifically asked whether I was lying when I denied having lied in denying there was any funny business going on. And how do you know the test is on the level? It’s all there in my latest sworn affidavit, which my assistant is handing out now.

But we can’t let a small number of insiders distract us. Because this isn’t about me. This is about a movement — no, a cause. Ontarians are telling me they want me to get to the bottom of who has betrayed me, and strike down upon them with great vengeance.

Because we can’t fight amongst ourselves. We have to stand together to defeat the corrupt Wynne Liberals. A party that, if you can believe it, allegedly paid a candidate not to run for them — instead of maybe being a little more entrepreneurial, and getting them to pay to run. It just shows they have no business sense.

You know what they say: “what does not kill you makes you third party.” But we’re going to emerge from this bigger, and stronger, than ever. I want to expand the base of our party. I want to bring in union voters. I want to open doors for women. I want to reach out to young people. Let me rephrase that.

Over the next few weeks, you may see more stories questioning my integrity, character and leadership. And you may see me deny everything, with varying degrees of plausibility.

This is precisely why you should vote for me. Because I’m not a quitter, and I’ll never quit until I’ve united this party down to the ground.