Brampton Mayor Brown goes head-to-head with Conservative leadership rivals in Edmonton debate

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Published May 10, 2022 at 3:57 pm

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown will square off against his Conservative leadership rivals in Edmonton on Wednesday for the party’s first official leadership debate.

The former Ontario PC leader and current Brampton mayor skipped an unofficial debate last week, opting instead to sell party memberships in Atlantic Canada ahead of a June 3 deadline.

In a Facebook post, Brown called last week’s debate “a two-hour shouting match full of interruptions, mistruths and over-the-top personal attacks designed to score cheap social media sound bites.”

“Some are saying I won last night, and I didn’t even participate,” Brown said in the video, stopping short of providing details on who those “some” people were.

With attack ads already a staple of the leadership race, one of the candidate’s campaign managers says conservatives tuning into Wednesday’s debate hope to see the six candidates vying for the party’s top job lay off the personal attacks.

“I want the candidates to speak to the issues, debate the issues, debate them vigorously. But don’t become personal,” said Ed Fast, the British Columbia MP who is co-chairing former Quebec premier Jean Charest’s leadership campaign.

“At the end of the day, all of us are part of the Conservative family and we’re going to have to come together to fight the next election and be successful.”

Wednesday’s english debate will be followed by one in French two weeks later.

The unofficial debate last week saw fiery exchanges, which included Leslyn Lewis laying into fellow MP Pierre Poilievre for his stand against COVID-19 mandates.

Poilievre in turn went after Charest for his past work with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, and Poilievre also accused Charest of being a Liberal for having led the Quebec Liberal party.

Poilievre returns to Edmonton after holding a rally in the city last month that drew more than 2,000 people. The events have been a defining feature of his campaign, which insiders say is a sign of momentum rarely seen in leadership races.

Brown, like Charest, sees a path to victory by bringing in droves of new Conservative members, rather than trying to win over the existing grassroots.

Brown is specifically focusing his efforts on drawing support from racialized Canadians, including those with Muslim, Tamil, Sikh, Chinese or Nepalese heritage.

Michelle Rempel Garner, the longtime Calgary MP who is a co-chair on Brown’s campaign, said the party needs to grow in these communities in large cities to be more competitive against the Liberals.

Rempel Garner said the party would be wise to organize the topics in such a way that candidates address issues that have in the past held Canadians back from voting Conservative.

“Specifically topics like child care, like support for religious freedoms, like support for the LGBTQ community, like our position on women’s rights, reproductive health … and climate,” she said.

“Those are all issues that have repeatedly dogged our party over several elections.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 10, 2022.

With files from Ryan Rumbolt

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