The Conservative Party of Canada stands by its decision to revoke Mark King’s nomination for the federal riding of Nipissing-Timiskaming and will support Jordy Carr moving forward.
“Following the closure of the nomination process in Nipissing-Timiskaming the candidacy of Mark King was disallowed and after a National Council review, that disallowance was upheld.”
But Cory Hann Director of Communications for the Conservative Party of Canada stopped short of explaining why the decision was initially made.
“Our standard practice is we don’t provide reasons on disallowing an applicant. We know it is important for third party members to have confidence in the results of a nomination, and confident that everyone followed the rules.”
King initially beat Jordy Carr, a councillor for the Municipality of Callander, but in the end, King, a veteran North Bay city councillor, and District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board chair had his nomination revoked through an appeal process.
Although he has never been given a reason as to why it happened, King says he was told by Bill Greenberg, regional organizer for northern and eastern Ontario that he had used a corporate card to purchase his membership.
A claim King vehemently denies
See related: King believes having federal Conservative candidacy revoked boils down to credit card misunderstanding
The Conservative Party of Canada membership by-law clearly states that when making a membership purchase, “payment by cash, corporate cheque or corporate credit card is not permitted.”
Hann says the job of the returning officer at any nomination is to ensure that the rules are upheld, that everyone is following the rules.
“When the returning officer makes a decision on how rules are applied, that decision is to be respected. But we trust our returning officers to apply those rules and apply them equally and I’m confident that was the case in Nipissing-Timiskaming just as it has been across Canada in our nominations,” said Hann.
“We find that it is important to the Conservative Party that our members can have the utmost confidence in the results in any of our nominations. It is important to have an even playing field.”
Hann went on to explain that the rules and procedures are quite clear.
“They’re available on our website anytime anyone wants to look. Those rules and procedures are applied equally to all candidates in all ridings. It is a rare case when a nominee may be disallowed so it is never a decision we take lightly. So, as a result of the decision taken on Mr. King, the other candidate in the nomination was named the conservative candidate for October’s election, Jordy Carr, and of course we’re happy to have her on board,” said Hann.
“Jordy will represent us well in Nipissing-Timiskaming and give voters there a good choice as far as the plan we will be presenting Canadians. We’re excited to have her on the team. We’re looking forward to the October election and I know Jordy is pretty excited to get down to work and get the campaign ready. So, we’re looking forward to helping her do just that.”