Poilievre’s campaign muddies the Conservative leadership race, saying he added more than 300,000 new party members

Pierre Poilievre’s campaign to lead the Federal Conservatives has rocked the race, saying he has signed up more than 300,000 new members, but his rivals insist the battle to succeed former leader Erin O’Toole is far from over.

Jenni Byrne, Senior Advisor to the Ottawa Area MP, said her camp had signed up 311,958 new members by Friday night’s deadline. In the 2020 leadership race, the four Conservative candidates recruited more than 269,000 people in total, which was a record for the party.

Patrick Brown, the only other candidate in this race to release specific numbers, said his campaign signed up 150,000 members. Mr. Brown is the Mayor of Brampton, Ontario, and a former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.

Poilievre’s campaign says he recruited a record number of new members for the Conservative Party

Former Quebec Premier Jean Charest’s campaign has refused to release specific registration numbers. On Saturday, Charest’s team said he remained “very confident” in his strategy. “We’re in a good position to win all 78 races at Quebec,” director of communications Michelle Coates-Mather said, noting that those races make up about a quarter of the total points available in the race.

On Sunday, Mr. Charest tweeted: “I have never been more determined than today. We have a clear path to victory thanks to the tremendous support of our volunteers and activists.”

Party chairman Robert Batherson said neither he nor other party officials would comment on membership numbers, but that the party was poised to pass a milestone in Canadian politics.

“The Conservative Party of Canada will set a record for the largest number of paid members of any political party in Canadian history,” Batherson said in a statement.

He said party staff are working to process and verify all membership applications and provide a preliminary list of members for the six campaigns to review and challenge, if they wish, with the canvassing director. After these steps are completed, a voter list will be provided to the campaigns and a final, accurate membership number will be announced, he said.

The other candidates in the race, which culminates in a leadership vote on Sept. 10, are MPs Leslyn Lewis and Scott Aitchison and former Ontario MP Roman Baber.

Ms. Lewis’s campaign has signed more new members than in the previous race in 2020, where she came in third place, her campaign manager said, and many of her supporters still have memberships purchased at the time.

“We are very confident that Leslyn will be competitive in the race and has a path to victory,” Steve Outhouse said in a statement released on Sunday.

He added that last week’s campaign asked the party to produce an updated list of memberships processed since the last update in late April, but that Mr. Poilievre’s campaign opposed the idea.

Mr. Outhouse noted that the race will be decided by the Conservative base, and there are three months for a candidate to win their votes.

In a statement to The Globe, Byrne said that Poilievre never objected to publishing the full membership list, but rather a partial list that would not include everyone signed up to every campaign.

“In the spirit of full transparency,” he said, Mr. Poilievre’s campaign was asking the other candidates to authorize the party to publish each campaign’s membership recruitment figures.

Mr. Baber said, in a statement, that he is pleased with his campaign’s membership sales and optimistic for the final phase of the race.

Mr. Aitchison’s campaign manager, Jamie Ellerton, said the candidate will continue his campaign while party headquarters works to round out membership.

The end of the membership drive on Friday night marks a turning point in the race, with the candidates now focusing on influencing other camps and ensuring their members go ahead and vote.

An internal campaign document, obtained by The Globe and Mail, shows that Mr. Poilievre is not only popular in the conservative heartland of the Prairies, but has also recruited a significant number of members across the country, including in the key battlefields of Ontario and Quebec. .

In Ontario, with 120 rides, Mr. Poilievre’s campaign recruited 118,996 new members, the filing shows. In Quebec, with 78 races, the team entered 25,453 new conservators. And in British Columbia, with 42 constituencies, it enrolled 50,709 members.

In Alberta, Poilievre recruited 71,759 members, the document shows. In Saskatchewan he enrolled 15,333 people and in Manitoba 12,363.

The Ontario parliamentarian also recruited 6,411 members in Nova Scotia, 6,210 in New Brunswick, 2,582 in Newfoundland and Labrador and 1,322 in PEI, the document says.

In the territories, Poilievre recruited 818 new Conservative members, according to the document.

The Conservatives elect leaders on the basis of ranked-choice voting and proportional representation. The party allocates up to 100 points to candidates for each federal race based on the candidate’s popular vote in any given race. The system means that in addition to geographical distribution, it is also important to increase sales on low membership trips.

If at least 100 members vote in a riding, the party assigns equal weight to the riding in leadership elections.

The internal campaign document says that Mr. Poilievre signed up more than 1,000 new members on each of the 111 trips.

The unprecedented numbers in the race create a monumental task for Conservative Party staff who now need to review all new applicants to ensure they are valid and to remove any duplication.

Conservative strategist Melanie Paradis said it will be “a challenge for the party to get twice as many ballots by September.”

Party elections are held on paper ballots that are sent exclusively by mail.

In May, Ian Brodie, chairman of the Conservative leaders’ election organizing committee, told The Globe that even with an overwhelming number of members, the party will stick to its September 10 timetable for announcing a new leader.

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