A town councillor running for the Conservative nomination in an Ontario riding that was already the source of controversy earlier this month says she was unfairly blocked from carrying the party banner because the top Tory brass wanted another candidate instead.

Rachel Gilliland, who sits as a member of Aurora, Ont.'s town council, told CBC News Wednesday she was denied the chance to run for the nomination in the Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill riding and was “given no reason for the denial.”

“I did ask for clarity and I didn’t get any. It seemed to me like there’s a candidate that has a little bit more favouritism from the party, let’s just say that,” she said in an interview. “There were quite a few things that didn’t seem kosher.”

“I’ve worked my butt off for almost a year and I made a lot of personal sacrifices. If the party was adamant about having a specific person win then by all means … but pick up the phone and tell me. They could’ve thrown me a bone,” she said.

  • girlfreddyOP
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    24 days ago

    Here’s hoping the Cons don’t win the next election, because if they do these ‘irregularities’ won’t see the light of day.

    • sbv@sh.itjust.works
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      24 days ago

      I don’t get the connection between the Tories winning the election and the irregularities seeing the light of day. The party controls the nomination process, so it’s an internal thing.

      • girlfreddyOP
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        24 days ago

        Because irregularities have been noted, and unless they are examined it can lead to a disintegration of trust in the process.

        Besides we’ve already seen bad things happen in right wing party nominations, ie: Alberta and Jason Kenney/UCP mess the RCMP is still investigating.

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    24 days ago

    Americans have given bullshit like this oxygen but we don’t have to allow that up here.

    If someone alleges election irregularities they better come armed with fucking facts - if they don’t we must not tolerate them.

    How to avoid tolerating them is the hard part - in the 90s or 00s the penalty for a false claim like this would be ostracization by the voting base, but if the voting base has been fed ends-justify-the-means bullshit like Fox News spreads we may need to rely on some independent process for barring candidates and that can get fucking dangerous.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    24 days ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    A town councillor running for the Conservative nomination in an Ontario riding that was already the source of controversy earlier this month says she was unfairly blocked from carrying the party banner because the top Tory brass wanted another candidate instead.

    's town council, told CBC News Wednesday she was denied the chance to run for the nomination in the Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill riding and was “given no reason for the denial.”

    Now that Gilliland has been blocked from running for the party and Maddeaux is out, the nomination election will be held on May 28 with only two candidates on the ballot: Menegakis and Carmine Perrelli, a former regional councillor and deputy mayor of Richmond Hill, Ont.

    Gilliland said she has reason to believe the party’s membership list — the master directory of Conservatives in a particular riding — was unfairly given to another candidate for the nomination in contravention of the rules.

    Maddeaux told CBC News earlier this month that she suspected another campaign had early access to the membership list — a development that would give that particular competitor a big benefit over the other prospective nomination candidates.

    Fischer, the Conservative spokesperson, previously told CBC News that Maddeaux’s claims of nefarious membership list sharing were “completely false.”


    The original article contains 1,002 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!