PCs hire auditors due to high interest in nominations
Even bandwagons need brakes and airbags.
Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown says he hired privatesector auditors PwC to oversee his party’s candidate nominating elections because so many people are vying to run in the June 7, 2018 election.
As disclosed by the Star, party activists in Newmarket-Aurora and Ottawa West-Nepean are challenging the results of their nominations after irregularities such as ballot stuffing.
With polls suggesting the PCs could unseat the Liberals next year, newly minted Tories have been climbing aboard the Brown bandwagon.
“We’ve never seen so many memberships being sold. There is this massive appetite for change in Ontario and because of that we’ve never had so many candidates, so many contested nominations,” the PC leader said in an interview Monday. “For me, given the fact that we’re seeing nominations that are more energized than ever before, I thought engaging PwC would help let anyone know that there’s a neutral arbiter there,” he said.
Auditors from the firm began monitoring Tory nominations this past weekend. “We had three nominations, heard no complaints,” Brown said. “Ultimately I have to sign the nominations and I’ve told the party that I want PwC to sign off on the best practices.”
Brown said interest picked up steam after PC MPP Raymond Cho won the Liberal stronghold of Scarborough—Rouge River in the Sept. 1 byelection.
“Frankly, it’s a good problem to have. Where other parties have to appoint candidates or struggle to find people, we have more people than we’ve ever been accustomed to.”