Just like in previous BC Liberal leadership battles including the Christy Clark one where Kevin Falcon tasted his first leadership defeat, there is another membership scandal brewing involving Falcon this time with many of his new memberships in dispute. With the membership sign-up deadline of Dec. 17 now over, theBreaker.news reported that BC Liberal insiders say as many as 2,500 new memberships sold by perceived frontrunner Falcon are in dispute.
SURREY – Just like in previous BC Liberal leadership battles including the Christy Clark one where Kevin Falcon tasted his first leadership defeat, there is another membership scandal brewing involving Falcon this time with many of his new memberships in dispute.
With the membership sign-up deadline of Dec. 17 now over, theBreaker.news reported that BC Liberal insiders say as many as 2,500 new memberships sold by perceived frontrunner Falcon are in dispute.
Falcon’s team has focused on Surrey and Abbotsford. A source said many new members share the same residential or commercial address, or provided an address outside Canada. In some cases, payment has come in the form of pre-paid credit and debit cards, reported theBreaker.news.
The source also said Falcon campaign manager Kareem Allam told supporters during an event on the final weekend of the new membership sales phase that he guaranteed Falcon would win.
On Twitter at 5:06 p.m. on Dec. 17, Allam said he was “so proud” of the Falcon campaign.
“With the BC Liberals membership deadline now passed, I am proud to share that no other campaign has sold more memberships than the Kevin Falcon campaign…. This is a real renewal,” Allam Tweeted.
That, however, does not translate into automatic first ballot victory. The party is allocating 100 points to each electoral district for the Feb. 3-5, 2022 vote. Andrew Wilkinson resigned after the 2020 election loss and Shirley Bond became the interim leader.
Falcon dismissed the controversy in an email to theBreaker.news.
“It’s the typical kind of accusation made from a competing campaign that realizes we have signed up the most new members. The Party has a rigorous audit process and if there are any mistakes found in new memberships (very common when campaigns are signing up thousands of new members) then they will be dealt with,” Falcon said.
“I’m very happy to have a team that has done such an outstanding job rebuilding and revitalizing our party by signing up so many new members. This is exactly the kind of rebuilding the Party needs.”
In 2011, Christy Clark edged former Finance and Health Minister Falcon for the leadership. Seven years later, it was confirmed that Clark’s campaign gathered blocks of PINs for the online and phone vote, which likely put it over the top, reported theBreaker.news.
