Patrick Brown: Disgraced Politician Turned Potential Party Leader

Patrick Brown is a well-known politician in Ontario Politics serving both Barrie and Brampton since the year 2000, currently serving as Mayor of Brampton since 2018. He was a member of parliament under the Harper government in 2006 and served Barrie in the House of Commons until 2015 when he became the leader of the Progressive Conservative party. Brown during this time was voted to represent Simcoe North in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario and was also the leader of the Opposition, this title is currently being held by Andrea Hawthrone. In 2018, though, Brown was expelled from the caucus following sexual assault/misconduct allegations. Brown did eventually step down, but at first he refused.   

Since then, Brown has denied allegations of sexual assault/misconduct with the two women of which were both on his staff, one of which was said to be under-aged, the comment about her age has since been removed from the original story.  Brown was never charged and the record was cleared. CTV (the original reporters of the story) put out an apology stating:

“Key details provided to CTV for the story were factually incorrect and required correction […] CTV National News regrets including those details in the story and any harm this may have caused to Mr. Brown.”

Since the apology, the reports which came out in 2018 have been corrected, with the National Post commenting on the age of the women being made older than they once were (a high school girl now a college-aged woman). The original acts are still detailed and unchanged from the report CTV posted in 2018. One stated that Brown asked her to perform oral sex on him after giving her a tour of his home. The other, a university student who worked in his office when Brown was a federal Conservative MP, alleges Brown sexually assaulted her following an event she helped to organize.

Now that these corrections have been made and he has been cleared of the allegations, Brown is running for the Federal Leadership bid of the Canadian Conservative Party. Brown posted on Twitter on March 22nd, 2022: “I am the only one that can lead the Conservative Party to victory and stop the Liberal-NDP socialist coalition from getting another four years at power.” This tweet came out after the news of the new NDP-Liberal deal was announced, with many other candidates tweeting similar thoughts. 

Brown will have until April 19th to enter the race and until June 3rd to submit membership applications. Overall, Brown has been getting support from the party with MP Michelle Rempel Garner joining his campaign, stating: “I know that the team Patrick is building will grow the Conservative party to a victory in the next federal election. Nothing unites Conservatives like winning a federal election. I’m proud to be part of this movement and I’m in it to win it.” 

The leadership Bid will be held September 10th, 2022. The other candidates for this leadership bid are Leslyn Lewis who came third in the last race, Pierre Poilievre, Jean Charest Marc Dalton, and Scott Aitchison.