Will Patrick Brown remain as Brampton mayor if he runs for Conservative leadership?
Published March 11, 2022 at 5:00 pm
There’s nothing stopping Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown from continuing on as mayor while exploring a political future in Ottawa.
Brown is expected to make an announcement on Sunday after weeks of speculation that he might run for leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada.
The leadership vote is scheduled for Sept. 10 and potential candidates have until April 19 to enter the race with a $200,000 entry fee on top of a $100,000 deposit.
But Brampton is also scheduled for a municipal election on October 24, and even though the two races are a little more than a month apart the mayor could still retain his local seat while seeking out a federal leadership bid.
The CPC’s leadership rules don’t stop a sitting city mayor from entering the race, but winning the CPC leadership would disqualify Brown from running municipally.
According to the Municipal Elections Act, a member of the Legislative Assembly, the Senate or House of Commons of Canada are not not eligible to run for a council or mayor. But rules and tradition show that a local councillor or mayor can continue to hold seat while running for a higher office.
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It’s possible Brown could hedge his bets and mount a municipal re-election campaign. But if Brown does step down or take a leave of absence as mayor, one or both of the city’s deuty mayors – Coun. Martin Medeiros and Coun. Pat Fortini – could step in to take over.
Last week, Brown told insauga.com publisher Khaled Iwamura he plans to “uphold my duties in Brampton” and will honour “every commitment I made in the last municipal election.”
“I had an ambitious platform to get Brampton back on track and I still want to make sure we achieve every element of that platform,” he said.
Should Brown decide to run again in Brampton the first day to file official nomination forms is May 2.
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