Call for cheaters to be booted from Conservative leadership race
OTTAWA — Arguments and allegations of improper membership sales are roiling the crowded Conservative leadership race as tensions escalate between rivals before next week’s rapidly approaching deadline to sign up new members.
Would-be leader Lisa Raitt has become the latest to wade into the controversy, calling on the party to do more to protect the integrity of the process as the clock ticks down to next Tuesday’s cut-off date.
Cheaters should be expelled and their campaigns heavily fined, Raitt said Monday in the wake of an internal party investigation wiping more 1,300 people off the rolls after it was determined they hadn’t paid for their own cards.
“Cheaters and rule breakers who do this discourage the involvement of both our long standing and new party members. It makes a mockery of their commitments and corrupts the process,” Raitt said in a statement.