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Brian Williams •
Printed Oct 29, 2024 • Final up to date Oct 30, 2024 • 3 minute learn
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Candidates for the Conservative nomination in Elgin-St. Thomas-London South: Anthony Shields, left, and Andrew Lawton.
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The race for the Conservative nomination in a longtime federal Tory seat within the London space is heating up as a doable vote to pick out the candidate nears.
Tony Brooks – one among three individuals who publicly declared their intention to hunt the nomination in Elgin-Middlesex-London – stated he was disqualified due to a technicality over his occasion membership.
Brooks’s departure from the race fired up Andrew Lawton, who is also looking for the nomination. Lawton accuses a “backroom cabal” of making an attempt to safe the nomination for Anthony Shields, a 3rd particular person looking for the nomination.
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Brooks, a Central Elgin resident, stated he was disqualified as a consequence of an utility submitting deadline technicality.
Candidates are required to carry occasion membership for six months earlier than they’re eligible to run as a candidate. Though Brooks utilized to obtain the appliance to run as a candidate earlier than six months had elapsed of renewing his membership, he attests he didn’t file the prolonged doc till six months after the membership’s renewal.
MP Karen Vecchio, a Conservative who has represented the driving since 2015, stated the time period “filed” has been misconstrued.
“To me, the definition of ‘filing’ is not access to a portal, it’s when somebody actually submits an application,” Vecchio stated. “I think that they will need to figure out what the word filing really means, because they’re using it in a very different context of what the definition is.”
Lawton referred to as Brooks’s disqualification “shameful and undemocratic” in a press release.
“All candidates should be given the opportunity to run,” Lawton stated. “It’s clear the local nomination committee, which is stacked with old guard gatekeepers, is trying to tilt this contest for their preferred candidate.”
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The driving, which can be redrawn and renamed Elgin-St. Thomas-London South within the subsequent Parliament, will open after Vecchio steps down forward of the following election.
In a press release to The Free Press, Conservative driving affiliation vice-president Bradley Clift dismissed Lawton’s assertion that the native committee was liable for disqualifying Brooks.
Clift stated the native affiliation doesn’t “have the ability to disqualify nominees,” and its position is to “advise the national committee.”
“Andrew’s comments aren’t representative of how the process works,” Clift stated. “The national candidate selection committee has the final say as to who is allowed to contest the riding.”
A nationwide spokesperson for the Conservative occasion couldn’t be reached Tuesday.
A vote among the many occasion’s membership to pick out the nominee would occur earlier than Nov. 25, a deadline based mostly on the federal Conservatives closing discover, Clift stated final week.
Lawton – a broadcaster, writer and journalist – is married to reporter Jennifer Bieman. He ran unsuccessfully for Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives in London West within the 2018 election.
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Shields – who grew up in Elgin County and returned there after a profession within the army – has an interview scheduled with native Conservative officers Wednesday within the subsequent step of the candidate course of, Clift stated.
“The party still could choose not to invite him to contest the riding,” Clift stated.
Shields didn’t reply to an e mail despatched to his web site.
Sarcastically, Brooks stated he thought it was Lawton who was considered the preferential candidate by Conservative insiders in Ottawa who “parachuted” him into the driving.
“Conservative staffers in Ottawa know that they want to give it to him,” Brooks stated.
Brooks stated he’s supporting Shields.
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