Christian Conservative Christian "Independent"

I'm an evangelical Christian, member of the CPC, but presently & unjustly exiled to wander the political wilderness.
All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

Friday, November 02, 2007

NP - "Candidates rejected by grassroots"

Looks like the real story is finally making it's way out...
Grassroots complaints cited for Conservative candidates' rejections
Chris Wattie, National Post
Published: Friday, November 02, 2007

The Conservative party rejected two candidates in Ontario ridings as a result of complaints from the party's grassroots, not interference from the top, the head of the party's national council said yesterday.

Don Plett, the president of the 18-member council, said Mark Warner, the former Tory candidate in Toronto Centre, and Brent Barr, who was to have run for the party in Guelph, were disqualified this week after the party held hearings into complaints from their riding associations, local party members and concerns raised by the Conservatives' national campaign office.

He would not provide details of the complaints, citing privacy agreements, but said there were separate complaints about Mr. Warner and Mr. Barr's candidacy. "There were issues that were raised by their riding associations and by our political operations [national campaign organizers]," he said.

"There were issues with both candidates -- that's all I can say about that."

UPDATE: Part of an e-mail that was sent to me by a contact also seems to confirm this suspicion...
"We have all heard the news about Brent being removed as the CPC Guelph candidate. We have seen, read and heard in the news one and only one viewpoint of why it happened.

Obviously there is a great deal of confidential and Private information that I can not disclose, but what I can say is that the decision to remove Brent was preceded by several months of intense effort to have our candidate fulfill his obligations to the Party and the EDA.

Hard decisions such as removal of a candidate are not knee jerk reactions, they only occur after all avenues at resolving the situation have been exhausted. This was in no way a heavy handed blind decision by Ottawa."

UPDATE II: Prime Minister Harper has stated categoricly that he had nothing to do with the oustings.

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posted by Christian Conservative @ 11:59 a.m.  

5 Comments:

  • At Fri Nov 02, 12:52:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Dirk said…

    So let me get this straight...

    Brent Barr was nominated to be the candidate for the upcoming election by CPC members in Guelph. Since then, people in your EDA and other CPC members in Guelph have complained to the national council about Mr. Barr's performance of late.

    Forgetting about what you've read in the media, is that true?

     

  • At Fri Nov 02, 01:08:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Eric said…

    Quite frankly if Don Plett had some reason to boot Warner and Barr then he should produce it now.

    Both have decided to go public with their complaints (Warner especially) and so the Tories should respond and give the public a balanced view. If there really wasn't a good reason for the oustings then they should reconsider how they handle these sort of affairs.

     

  • At Fri Nov 02, 01:59:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Dan McKenzie said…

    "When they say that the democratic process has been subverted, nothing could be further from the truth"

    Yah that's really believable. Just about as believable as Don Plett saying he didn't know Mark Warner was black.

     

  • At Fri Nov 02, 02:30:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    It's true Dan... nothing could be further from the truth.

     

  • At Fri Nov 02, 05:01:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Dirk said…

    This has been an interesting set of posts. From how CC has worded things, it appears that the ousting of Mr. Barr was news to him (a board member of the Guelph EDA) as it was for me -- a complete outsider.

    If so, then wow.

     

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