Hudak and Elliott campaigns protest party decision on London debate

I received news this evening that the PC Party had moved to prohibit recording devices from a leaders debate to occur today in London. I’ve verified with a reporter covering the race that this indeed was the case. The Elliott and Hudak campaigns were quick to protest the decision. Here are their emails (forwarded to me by the respective campaigns).

The Elliott campaign,

and the Hudak campaign,

Finally, I’ve heard that the party will go ahead and allow reporters to use recording devices during the debate.

UPDATE: This is confirmed. Here is the media advisory from the party.

Hudak memberships in question?

The story broke on PerezHudak.com earlier today. It is rumoured that the Hudak campaign filed a number of their membership 1.5 hours late of the deadline.

I’m hearing that the Tim Hudak campaign has failed to meet a deadline for submitting some of their paperwork, and as a result many of their memberships may be in jeopardy:

As you probably know the deadline to submit actual membership forms with signatures was today for the leadership campaigns – an electronic list was submitted last thursday to the party by campaigns.

Apparently Team Hudak submitted their forms 1.5 hrs late today and could result in all their sales being disqualified.

Rumour is that the Christine Elliott campaign is pushing to have these members struck from the list of eligible voters for the leadership election. The Leadership Election Committee is meeting tonight to consider the matter.

I’ve learned that about 5,000 memberships may be in questions. This was confirmed to me by sources close to both the Elliott and Klees campaigns.

Yet, where the story differs, and where it may have instead developed, is in the Elliott campaign reaction. I received this from the Elliott campaign addressed to the Party.

This is either a sportsmanlike gesture from the Elliott campaign or an attempt to bring more attention to the issue and flesh it out within the news cycle.

UPDATE: I’ve heard that Elliott’s campaign lobbied the Leadership Election Committee all day to toss the Hudak memberships, but when they received a “definitive no”, that’s when the strategy changed to put out a statement supporting the memberships in question.

UPDATE: I’ve received formal communication from the Hudak campaign explaining what went wrong,

Frank Klees interview

Frank Klees is running for the leadership of the PC Party of Ontario and took some time to chat with me today about what his bid means and where Ontario needs to go given the tough economic times and new taxation structure being implemented by Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty. Frank also discusses specific policy measures that he would or would not implement.

Related: Tim Hudak interview, Christine Elliott interview, Randy Hillier interview