OTTAWA — An Ontario Superior Court judge has overturned the Conservative party’s disqualification of Jim Karahalios from the Conservative leadership race, concluding it was decided by a committee that didn’t have the authority to do so.
The development could have big consequences on the race — but it may also be short-lived, as the judge made it clear the party still has the right to disqualify Karahalios through the proper means.
If he’s allowed to stay in the race, Karahalios would also have to raise a further $100,000 in the next two weeks beyond the roughly $300,000 he’s raised to date.
In his ruling released overnight on Wednesday, Justice Paul Perell concluded the decision to disqualify Karahalios was made improperly by the four-member dispute resolution appeal committee (DRAC), a subcommittee of the full 18-member leadership election organizing committee (LEOC).
“However, under the Leadership Rules, the DRAC did not have the authority to disqualify Mr. Karahalios,” Perell writes. “The authority to disqualify is reserved to the eighteen members of the LEOC, which has never formally or properly considered the matter of Mr. Karahalios’ status as a candidate.”
But the ruling also leaves it open to LEOC to still consider the matter and make its own decision.
“Mr. Karahalios’ status is properly left to the LEOC to adjudicate,” the ruling says. “That was the contractual arrangement of the candidates with the Conservative party. LEOC is in the position to determine if the conduct of the Mr. Karahalios was such that he should be disqualified as a candidate.”
The judge describes Karahalios as a “populist, grassroots candidate” in the leadership race and an “outsider” taking on the party establishment. He also notes Karahalios has a long, antagonistic history with some party officials, particularly through legal disputes involving the Ontario PC Party.
Karahalios was barred from the race after leadership rival Erin O’Toole complained to the party that Karahalios had defamed O’Toole’s campaign chair, Walied Soliman, and engaged in “racist Islamophobic remarks that besmirched the expressed principles of the Conservative party,” according to the ruling.
The complaint related to a letter Karahalios circulated in February accusing O’Toole of promoting Sharia law by having Soliman, who is Muslim, on his campaign. It cited a decade-old newspaper article where Soliman answered readers’ questions about Sharia financial products. Karahalios has strenuously denied the letter was racist.
The race’s chief returning officer, Derek Vanstone, levied a $50,000 fine over the letter and ruled Karahalios needed a further $50,000 for his refundable deposit. But when Karahalios appealed to DRAC, DRAC decided to disqualify him instead.
The judge’s ruling invalidates the March 18 decision of DRAC and reinstates the original financial sanctions. If Karahalios pays the fine within 14 days, “he is a Verified Leadership Candidate in good standing,” the decision says. But it will also depend if LEOC decides to take up the case.
The Conservative party’s position during the trial was that referring the matter to LEOC would be futile because a majority of the committee’s members (which include the four members of DRAC) have already found Karahalios to be an “unsuitable leadership candidate.” But Perell’s ruling says LEOC has never made any decisions about it.
“Mr. Karahalios would be entitled to an open-minded consideration by LEOC, but it remains open to LEOC to disqualify Mr. Karahalios,” the ruling says.
Perell rejected Karahalios’ argument that party officials were acting in a partisan manner to favour other candidates, and concluded the complaint process was fair and party officials did not act in bad faith.
In a statement Wednesday, Karahalios said he is reviewing the ruling “to assess how I can best re-enter the race in a competitive manner that respects the court’s ruling, the rules of the race as clarified by the court, and the will of Conservative party members.”
“The challenge before me is that in order to get on the ballot, I have to raise an additional $100,000 without the use of the party (membership) lists as the CRO required,” he writes, referring to the chief returning officer. “The court has given me 14 days to raise this amount in order to be placed on the ballot. While I disagree with the CRO’s heavy-handed ruling, I have no further means by which to appeal it because of the court’s limited jurisdiction.”
Conservative Party spokesman Cory Hann said the party is also reviewing the decision.
“We are pleased that Mr. Justice Perell has found that our process afforded Mr. Karahalios was fundamentally fair’ and ‘that there is nothing to Mr. Karahalios’ allegation that there was bad faith by the Conservative party or any of its officials,'” Hann said.
The race will be decided by mail-in voting this summer and conclude Aug. 21. The four candidates on the ballot are O’Toole, Peter MacKay, Leslyn Lewis and Derek Sloan.
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