Party election in Canada
In 2022, the Conservative Party of Canada held a leadership election to elect the successor to Erin O'Toole. He was removed on February 2, 2022, as leader by the party's caucus in the House of Commons of Canada by a vote of 73–45.
Five candidates were running for the position, including former Cabinet minister and Member of Parliament Pierre Poilievre, former Cabinet minister, former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, and former Quebec Premier Jean Charest, Member of Parliament Leslyn Lewis, Member of Parliament Scott Aitchison, and Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament Roman Baber. Former member of parliament, former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, and Brampton, Ontario Mayor Patrick Brown also ran for the position, but was disqualified in early July due to his campaign's alleged violations of the financial provisions of the "Canada Elections Act".
On September 10, it was announced that Poilievre won the leadership on the first ballot. This was the party's first leadership election since 2004 which resulted in a first-ballot victory.
After the race, the whistleblower who alleged violation on Brown's campaign was revealed to have their legal fees paid by the Poilievre campaign. In addition, there have been reports that Patrick Brown's bid in the leadership race was a target of foreign interference from the Indian government, due to his affiliation with Khalistani-separatist groups based in Canada.
Background.
Following the 2021 Canadian federal election, the Conservative Party remained the Official Opposition with a loss of two seats, leaving it with 119 seats in the House of Commons. O'Toole announced that he had enough support to remain leader, and launched a review of the Conservative election campaign. James Cumming was selected to lead the review.
In November 2021, Senator Denise Batters launched an internal party petition to review O'Toole's leadership. Party president Robert Batherson quickly decided the petition was not in order. The following day, Batters was removed from the National Conservative Caucus, although she retained her membership in the Saskatchewan Conservative Caucus and the Conservative Senate Caucus.
In late January 2022, Cumming completed his review and briefed Conservative MPs and senators on his findings. His report blamed party staff for "over managing" O'Toole during the campaign, and said O'Toole needed to be more "authentic" and Conservatives failed to craft policy on some issues. In response to the report, O'Toole acknowledged that he needed to appear less "scripted" during the final days of the campaign.
On January 31, 2022, Conservative MP Bob Benzen submitted a letter with signatures from 35 Conservative MPs calling for a leadership review, pursuant to the "Reform Act", of O'Toole's leadership to the Conservative caucus chair, Scott Reid. In the letter, Benzen criticized O'Toole's reversal on repealing Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's carbon tax and assault weapons ban.
This was the first time the "Reform Act" leadership-removal provisions were invoked. During the review, held on February 2, 2022, 45 MPs voted to retain him against 73 who voted for his removal. Immediately following his removal the Conservative caucus voted by secret ballot to appoint Candice Bergen as interim leader.
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In addition to Bergen, eight other caucus members sought to be appointed interim leader, including John Barlow, John Brassard, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Marilyn Gladu, Tom Kmiec, Rob Moore and John Williamson.
Rules and procedures.
On March 8, 2022, the party's Leadership Election Organizing Committee released the Rules and Procedures for the 2022 Leadership document. As in the previous two leadership elections, the vote was held under instant-runoff voting in which each electoral district was given 100 points, distributed according to the weight of a candidate's vote in that electoral district. Should no candidate have received more than 50% of the points in a round, the candidate with the lowest amount of points was removed and their points were reallocated to the next highest choice on the ballots that had selected them. Voting was only open to members of the Conservative Party of Canada who had joined the party on or before June 3. Conservative Party membership was open to any Canadian Citizen or Permanent Resident aged 14 or older.
To be considered as a candidate, a member of the party had to apply by April 19 to the Leadership Candidate Nominating Committee with a completed Leadership Contestant Questionnaire, a written endorsement of the party's Code of Conduct policy document, and a $50,000 deposit. Then the member had until April 29 to provide the remaining $150,000 registration fee, a $100,000 security deposit (related to providing financial filings and adherence to the Rules and Procedures document), and 500 signatures of endorsement from party members (which must span at least 30 Electoral Districts in 7 provinces). The document limited expenses to $7,000,000 and prohibited accepting contributions from non-residents and foreign entities. Ballots were mailed to Conservative party members in late July or early August with the results being released on September 10. Media coverage of the 2022 race has described it as "the most expensive-to-enter race in Canadian history".
Campaign.
On March 30, 2022, concerns arose that the party's membership lists may have been compromised and used to make fake donation pledges. Melanie Paradis, a former staffer to Erin O'Toole, posted a warning to Twitter about the alleged breach, saying that she was contacted about a $120 donation pledge she never made. Laurence Toth, spokesman for the Charest campaign, said someone had made numerous false donations pledges using a Ukrainian IP address, saying it was an "obvious attempt to create chaos" for the campaign. The party has denied that members' data had been compromised but is investigating the incidents.
In early April, Charest raised the prospect that Poilievre's support for the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa – as expressed in a 10 February podcast during which Poilievre said "I'm proud of the truckers and I stand with them," – disqualified him from being party leader. In response to Charest's comments, Poilievre said Charest was "repeating Liberal lies about truckers" and stated that Charest's consulting work for Huawei "sold out Canada's security" and disqualifies him from becoming prime minister.
On April 12, 2022, Poilievre raised concerns of potential fraud through the use of prepaid credit cards to purchase party memberships. A lawyer for his campaign sent a letter to the leadership election organizing committee demanding that it prohibit the use of prepaid cards to purchase memberships, and saying the campaign would take "appropriate steps to require the party comply" if it did not receive an "acceptable response" in a few days. The use of prepaid credit cards for the leadership election was banned on April 14.
On July 5, 2022, Patrick Brown was disqualified from the race by the party's Leadership Election Organizing Committee. In a statement, Ian Brodie, the chair of the committee, said that the disqualification was recommended by the party's chief returning officer after receiving information on alleged violations of the financial provisions of the Canada Elections Act by Brown's campaign.
Aftermath.
In July 2023, the Toronto Star later revealed that the volunteer who notified the party of the alleged violations by Brown's campaign, had her legal fees paid by the Poilievre campaign. Brown described the move as "dirty" but still supported the party. 
In June 2024, National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians released a report stating that there was foreign interference in this leadership race by the governments of India and China. The Toronto Star reported that foreign interference done by the government of India and also Sri Lanka due to their opposition to Patrick Brown and his relationships with their diaspora.
Results.
On September 10, 2022, the Conservative Party announced that Pierre Poilievre had won the election in the first round with 68% of points.
Poilievre won the leadership election in a landslide, carrying 330 of 338 ridings with at least a plurality. In both points and vote, Poilievre won the largest share ever in a Conservative Party of Canada leadership election, eclipsing Stephen Harper, who won with 56% of points and 69% of the vote in 2004. Poilievre also eclipsed Harper's 2004 victory in terms of votes cast, winning with 70% of the vote. Polls before the announcement of results, from Ipsos and Leger, had shown him at 54% and 63% support respectively (both 44% when including undecideds) among Conservative Party supporters. This was also the first time since the 2004 leadership election that the winner was determined on the first ballot. Last Conservative leader Erin O'Toole won on the third round with 57% of points. The margin of his victory was also the largest in any seriously contested leadership election for a Canadian conservative party, exceeding the 66.7% of the delegated vote that George A. Drew had won while winning the leadership of the old Progressive Conservative Party in 1948; Charest had won 96% of the vote in 1995, but ran unopposed as one of only two MPs the party still had (the other, Elsie Wayne, declined to contest the leadership election) after the 1993 Canadian federal election.
The only other candidate to win a plurality in any ridings was Jean Charest, whose support disproportionately came from Quebec, which had fewer voting Conservative Party members than Western Canada; this allowed Charest to get, in turn, a slightly higher percentage of points than votes, though not as extremely disproportionate as Belinda Stronach's in 2004, who also received much support in the East. Despite this, Poilievre still won 72 of the province's 78 ridings. Charest won his former federal riding of Sherbrooke, all other candidates losing their ridings to Poilievre.
Provincial summary.
Source: cpcleadership.ca
Debates.
Canada Strong and Free Network invited all declared candidates to its debate, but only candidates who satisfied the party's verified criteria were ultimately permitted to attend. Dalton and Bourgault had agreed to attend the debate, but both failed to become verified contestants. Brown did not attend the first unofficial debate held by the Strong and Free Network.
The Independent Press Gallery of Canada debate was cancelled due to an insufficient number of candidates attending. Dalton had agreed to join the debate before he failed to qualify as a candidate. Baber, Charest, and Lewis had also agreed, but Aitchison, Brown, and Poilievre did not, and thus the debate was cancelled.
Leslyn Lewis did not attend the Western Standard debate due to a prior commitment.
Verified candidates are required to attend all official debates organized by the party's Leadership Election Organizing Committee. In April 2022, the committee advised candidates that they reserved the right to hold a third official debate in August. In July, the committee announced that it would be holding a third debate. Immediately following the announcement, Poilievre said he would not be attending the debate. A week later, Lewis announced that she would also not participate in the third official debate. Under the leadership election rules both face a fine of at least $50,000 if they do not attend.
In addition to the debates, there was also a candidate's forum held by seven Greater Toronto Area Conservative electoral district associations in Burlington, Ontario on May 1, 2022. All verified candidates were in attendance and gave six-minute speeches.
Candidates.
Withdrew or failed to qualify.
Failed to qualify as verified contestants.
Approved applicants who failed to qualify as verified candidates.
Grant Abraham
Grant Abraham, is a lawyer, columnist and unsuccessful candidate in the 2019 United Kingdom general election in the constituency of Strangford, where he stood for the Northern Ireland Conservatives. Abraham attended high school in Abbotsford, British Columbia, before completing bachelor's degree in business and English at Trinity Western University. He completed a law degree at Queen's University Belfast. Abraham announced his candidacy on March 29, 2022. His candidacy was approved on April 27, 2022, and on April 30, 2022, he was said to have met the requirements and was awaiting verification. On May 2, 2022, it was announced he did not meet qualifications. Abraham later said that he had met the financial and signature requirements, but that after submitting his application he was told that he had been "deemed ineligible" by the party. He has asked the party for clarification on why he was disqualified.
Leona Alleslev
Leona Alleslev, 54, is the former Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (2019–2020), and former MP for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill (2015–2021). Before entering politics, Alleslev was an air force officer and corporate manager, having worked for IBM and Bombardier. She launched a campaign website on March 26, 2022, before becoming an approved contestant in mid-April. At the time, her campaign