Tories nix memberships after O’Leary fraud claim
1,351 found on rolls not paid for by individual members
OTTAWA— The federal Conservative party removed more than 1,300 people from its membership rolls Friday following a review triggered by leadership hopeful Kevin O’Leary’s accusation that one of his rivals has been engaging in widespread fraud and vote-rigging.
The party’s announcement capped a day in which O’Leary’s allegations were attacked or mocked by a number of his leadership rivals, particularly by Maxime Bernier, who bluntly dismissed the celebrity businessman as a sore loser.
After an expedited review, the party revealed Friday that it found 1,351 memberships were purchased through two IP addresses, not paid for by each individual as required under party rules. Those memberships have been cancelled and the individuals are no longer eligible to vote in the leadership contest.
Over the past six months, the party said it has received 1,233 prepaid credit card transactions through its website, roughly half of which have been traced to the two IP addresses.
Party spokesman Cory Hann said it wasn’t possible to determine which leadership campaign or campaigns were involved since the memberships were purchased anonymously through the party’s website.
While O’Leary never pointed a finger at a specific campaign, sources had said the Bernier campaign was the alleged culprit.
Bernier fired back Friday, pulling no punches in a bluntly worded fundraising email to his supporters.
“Kevin O’Leary is a loser. I’m a winner,” Bernier said.
“He knows my campaign has raised more money, signed up more members, has more supporters and more volunteers. He’s a bad candidate. Instead of trying to win people over by putting out a platform, he’s throwing mud to try to save his campaign.”
However, after the party an- nounced it had found merit to O’Leary’s complaint, Bernier took to Twitter to say: “Good news. Conservative Party membership review process is working properly.”
O’Leary tweeted his satisfaction that “fraudulently purchased memberships” have been struck from the membership rolls.
“Pleased w/ the Party, we need to be sure we find them all,” he said.
Tony Clement, a former cabinet minister and senior adviser to Bernier, did not categorically deny the allegations when asked by the Star directly. But Clement did say that the Bernier campaign is not aware of any instances of voter fraud carried out by its volunteers. “If there’s an instance that is uncovered — we don’t know of any — but if there is an instance that’s uncovered, that in some way violates (the rules), then, of course, the party has to invalidate the membership,” said Clement.
When asked if the Bernier campaign had purchased prepaid credit cards, Clement said he expects “most campaigns” would have “some individuals who decided to sign up using their prepaid credit cards.
“I have no knowledge of that being illegal or in any way untoward,” Clement said. “But it has to be, as we’ve all been aware, that it has to be the decision of the individual person to sign up using that method. I’m not aware of any issue involving that.”
Earlier Friday, O’Leary attempted to enlist the other candidates in his fight against what he called a scam concocted by “sketchy insiders.” But some of his rivals seemed unsympathetic. Andrew Saxton and Rick Peterson challenged O’Leary, who has participated in just two leadership debates, to participate in future debates if he’s concerned about promoting democracy.
Kellie Leitch suggested it’s a bit rich for O’Leary “to cast aspersions on the other candidates in this race without a shred of evidence” when he’s the only candidate who’s been fined by the party — for refusing to attend a bilingual debate in Edmonton. “You need to put up or shut up Kevin,” she tweeted.
Memberships in the party cost $15 and party rules state they can be purchased only by personal credit card or cheque, a provision implemented specifically to avoid campaigns being able to use their own funds to sign up thousands of members. With files from Alex Boutilier