PC leader Brown accused of keeping social conservatives at bay
After being saddled with a teenage MPP, Tory Leader Patrick is stepping up efforts to stop social conservatives from running for his party in the 2018 election.
The Progressive Conservative chief has ejected at least five wouldbe candidates — including those who oppose abortion rights, samesex marriage, and the updated sexeducation curriculum — in recent nomination battles.
“There seems to be sort of an aggression pointed toward social conservatives in that party now,” said Jay Tysick, who was vying to run in the Ottawa-area riding of Carleton until he was shunted aside last month before Goldie Ghamari won the nomination. He may run as an independent in 2018.
“Personally, I have socially conservative views, but I don’t believe it’s my place in government to foist those on others. I’m very right wing and you’d think that in the Conservative party that would be a good thing,” Tysick said Monday.
“I’m pretty sure if Sam hadn’t won … they wouldn’t have been looking at mine so closely,” he said.
That’s a reference to MPP Sam Oosterhoff, 19, a social conservative who took the Nov. 17 Niagara West-Glanbrook after stunning PC president Rick Dykstra, 50, in an October nomination contest.
Last week, Derek Duval, who sold 1,200 Tory memberships at $10 apiece in Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, was disqualified from running in the Eastern Ontario riding.
On his Facebook, Duval said he was turfed after former MPP Garfield Dunlop, now a party employee, “accused me of filming someone eating a hamster off of a hockey stick” at a charity tournament.
“I informed Mr. Dunlop that the guy was eating poutine off of a hockey stick. Those facts didn’t matter. They made their decision long before they even saw the video,” he wrote, noting the “leader’s chosen candidate” was Amanda Simard.
Brown disputed Duval’s version of events.
“That wasn’t the issue for the disqualification. These are internal decisions. We … do our vetting and if there’s anything that comes up in background checks that we’re uncomfortable with there will be disqualifications,” the leader told reporters at Queen’s Park.
“We do some pretty extensive vetting and that means there will be candidates who get disqualified,” he said.
Asked if candidates are being disqualified for being social conservatives, Brown, who has been moving the party to the centre, said: “There’s a process here and we do our best to make sure that candidates share the values that we’re putting forward and so there’s a variety of things they can be disqualified for.”
Bob Stanley, executive director of the PC Party, did not return messages asking how many potential candidates have been ejected.
But source say at least five have so far been stopped from running — after they have submitted thousands of dollars in new memberships.
“This is starting to look like fraud and voter suppression,” said Tysick.