Tories launch witchhunt into rebel member Chen
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
151.01105
Summary
A Tory witch hunt is underway over Bert Chen, a member of the Conservative Party s National Caucus who called for leader Aaron O'Toole to resign hours after the loss to the Liberals in the September election. The party is demanding Chen turn over personal emails, social media postings, and phone records to find out who in the party he was in contact with during the turmoil.
Transcript
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Hello, I'm Dave Naylor, news editor of the Western Standard.
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A Tory witch hunt is underway over Bert Chen, a member of the Conservative Party's National
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Caucus who called for leader Aaron O'Toole to resign hours after the loss to the Liberals
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in the September election. The party is demanding Chen turn over personal emails,
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social media postings, and phone records to find out who in the party he was in contact with
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during the turmoil. Quote, it is our view that this investigation is an unprecedented campaign
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by the Conservative Party of Canada to thwart dissenting views and house those party members
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who disagree with the leadership of the party, said Scott Hamilton, who is a lawyer representing
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Chen in a statement to Global News. Global has obtained a copy of the letter sent by Arthur
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Hamilton, the party's longtime lawyer, detailing a sweeping investigation into Chen's suspension
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He was given a 60-day suspension after going public with his resignation call.
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His petition stated, quote, Aaron O'Toole has betrayed the principles that the Conservative
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Party is founded on. The petition then goes on to cite the principles Chen believes O'Toole
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has betrayed, including fiscal responsibility, ignoring people's freedoms with his vaccine
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policy, and embracing a carbon tax despite promises not to. The petition continues,
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we the undersigned request that the National Council of the Conservative Party of Canada
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commence a referendum to recall Aaron O'Toole as leader of the Conservative Party. The petition
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concludes. After O'Toole's loss to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the CPC leader technically won't need
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to submit to a leadership review until the next policy convention, and that's not scheduled until 2023.
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My preference is that O'Toole should be evaluated for his performance for the election, not the
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next one, Chen told the Western Standard in an interview in September. Quote,
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the feedback I've heard from many members is O'Toole has broken their trust with his flip-flopping
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on policies and every metric. He comes up short. For this and all the day's news, make sure you go to
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westernstandardonline.com. For the Western Standard, I'm Dave Naylor.