In its zeal to purge SoCons, Party brass flouts and circumvents own rules to disqualify Quebec candidates for National Council
Ottawa, March 12, 2021 – In a shockingly dishonest move, the Conservative Party of Canada disqualified two socially conservative candidate applicants, by resorting to a lie. Richard Décarie, a well-known social conservative, along with a second socon who wishes to remain anonymous, received rejection emails from the party’s Executive Director, informing them that “you are ineligible to seek the nomination”.
The reason given was because their National Council Candidate applications were submitted later than the deadline of 5 p.m. ET on February 11, 2021.The problem is that it’s demonstrably false.
Décarie and the other candidate’s applications were hand-delivered at 4:06 p.m. ET to the return address indicated on the application. It was not just placed in a mailbox, but handed to a staffer who took the delivery with both applications.
The application process required a minimum of 50 signatures from Quebec Conservative members to support the nomination. Those were sent by email to the Executive Director before 5:00 p.m. and the time-stamped emails prove that fact.
Décarie and the other candidate sent an appeal letter to the party’s Returning Officer, Wayne Benson, which included a notarized affidavit from the courier who delivered the applications in person, testifying that he delivered the completed paperwork at 4:06 p.m. to the party headquarters. The affidavit even included a photograph the courier took of himself standing in front of the CPC office door, and which he emailed to the candidates at exactly 4:07pm as proof that their applications had been delivered. The time-stamped photo evidence was included in the appeal letter to Mr. Benson.
On March 4, Mr. Benson emailed the candidates, and in the face of the time-stamped and photo evidence that the packages were delivered before the 5 p.m. February 11th deadline, he wrote: “There is no basis to reverse my February 25, 2021 decision, and therefore you are ineligible to stand for election to National Council… this decision is final and binding and not subject to any further appeal.”
“This level of skullduggery and dishonesty is unbecoming of the CPC, which has always held itself out as being proudly more democratic than the Liberals,” said Jeff Gunnarson, President of Campaign Life Coalition. “By waging war on its own base, which is largely socially conservative, the party is doing tremendous harm to its electoral chances in the next election. We call upon the party to apologize for this mistreatment of the candidates, and to put them on the ballot for Quebec’s National Council elections.”
About Campaign Life Coalition
Campaign Life Coalition is a national, non-profit organization involved in political action and advocacy for legal and cultural change in Canada with respect to protecting human life & the family. For more information, visit www.campaignlifecoalition.com.
Media Contacts
Jeff Gunnarson, President, Campaign Life Coalition, 519-835-8201, [email protected]
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