News
Featured Image
Conservative Party of Canada leader Erin O'TooleShutterstock

(LifeSiteNews) – The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) under pro-abortion leader Erin O’Toole has launched a full-blown witch hunt against one of its National Councillors who started a petition calling for the party to replace its leader.

Last week, Global News reported that it obtained a copy of a letter from CPC lawyer Arthur Hamilton revealing details of the investigation into CPC party National Councillor Bert Chen.

Chen is behind a petition calling for O’Toole to be ousted as CPC leader. At last count, his petition has 5,591 signatures. The petition was launched only a few weeks ago, and now has a goal of 7,500 signatures.

Chen was recently suspended as a seat holder on the national council of Ontario by party officials over the petition.

Hamilton’s letter states that the party will be looking through all the content within Chen’s CPC email account, which is under party control. The CPC has also demanded that all of Chen’s personal emails and phone records as well as text messages and social media posts be handed over as well.

As reported by Global News, the letter said that Chen should show all “special interest, pressure, advocacy or public interest group” who are linked to his petition calling for the ousting of O’Toole.

According to a Hill Times report, Chen’s suspension is now indefinite, with CPC president Rob Batherson saying there is no “fixed date on his suspension.”

Batherson said the CPC national council’s secretariat committee will be the group tasked with investigating Chen and providing the next steps on what to do with him.

LifeSiteNews contacted Chen regarding the CPC investigation and he said he will not be answering any media questions at this time.

Scott Hamilton, Chen’s lawyer, did release a statement to Global News last week. He blasted the CPC investigation as an “unprecedented campaign” to “thwart dissenting views and oust those party members who disagree with the leadership of the party.”

Shortly after Chen was suspended from the CPC national council a few weeks ago, he told LifeSiteNews that the process to suspend him is “personally and politically motivated,” but that he is confident there will “not be sufficient support for my removal from office.”

“I believe some councillors decided to engage in this process due to personal and emotional motivations and saw the petition as an excuse to exclude someone they did not like,” Chen said.

“The clear problem with Mr. O’Toole’s continued leadership is that he has lost a significant amount of trust of those that elected him as leader, and the petition is intended to provide a voice and opportunity for those members to have their voices heard earlier than August 2022.”

O’Toole through his party rule enforcers has come down hard on anyone, be they MPs of prominent members in the party or anyone else who does not toe the line.

Recently, CPC MP Marilyn Gladu launched a “Civil Liberties Caucus” to speak for Canadians who have chosen not to get the COVID jabs and said in an interview that COVID doesn’t pose the same “frequency of risk” as the polio disease.

Gladu had to apologize shortly after this, however.

Yesterday, CPC senator Denise Batters launched a petition calling for O’Toole’s removal, saying he is viewed as ‘untrustworthy’ to lead the party.

Batters said O’Toole “constantly changes” the direction of the party and that as a leader he has “watered down and even entirely reversed our policy positions without the input of party or caucus members on carbon tax, on guns, on conscience rights.”

Almost as soon as her petition was launched, the CPC’s Batherson said that it was invalid.

Long-term CPC Senator Michael MacDonald said in October that O’Toole’s shift to the left resulted in poor election results, meaning it’s now “necessary” to review him as the leader.

Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) recently called for the immediate removal of O’Toole as head of the CPC and blasted its suspension of Chen.

“Trying to silence a critic of O’Toole’s disastrous leadership will not save the party,” the CLC said.

Jeff Gunnarson, national president of CLC, said O’Toole has already “failed to win a very winnable election because of his foolish strategy of steering the party to the left” that caused the party to lose two seats in the 2021 election.

In early October, the CPC caucus met for the first time and voted to retain the right to be able to remove the party leader or any MP under provisions of the Reform Act of 2014.

The 2021 federal election was held September 20 and saw Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau re-elected with a minority government. The CPC under O’Toole won only 119 seats, two fewer than in 2019.