Doug Ford has denied any wrongdoing after being secretly taped assuring coffee-shop patrons that they do not have to pay for Progressive Conservative memberships, a breach of party rules.

Ford, who was recorded helping Etobicoke Centre PC candidate Kinga Surma in the 2016 party nomination, also insisted Thursday he did not intimidate runner-up Pina Martino by following her to her home.

The Tory leader and Surma were surreptitiously taped by an unidentified man while recruiting new members at an Etobicoke Tim Hortons outlet.

Ford denied the bogus membership allegations, saying he had never purchased $10 PC memberships for any candidate.

But he did not dispute the authenticity of the audio recording and said he had no plans to fire Surma, despite the apparent breach of party rules on membership sales.

“This happened close to two years ago,” he said at a local auto parts factory in Tillsonburg. “We went through an appeals process. The appeal was totally dismissed. This is the Liberals two weeks before the election trying to change the channel.”

In the recording, Ford and Surma are heard approaching customers at the coffee shop, asking them to become members.

Ford says, “It doesn’t cost ya anything.” Surma then asks them to fill out forms, with Ford adding: “You don’t have to fill that out … if you’re interested, we’ll do it for ya.”

Ford was also accused of intimidation tactics by Martino, which he dismissed as false.

The Liberals, who are trailing both the Progressive Conservatives and NDP in public opinion polls, also released an affidavit by Martino, who lost the 2016 nomination to Surma, in which she accuses Surma and Ford of duping dozens of people into party memberships and covering their fees.

Martino said she visited scores of homes of apparent members, but the residents had no clue they’d been signed up.

Thursday’s revelations were the latest in a string of questionable nomination tactics and candidate woes for the PCs, including allegations of ballot-box stuffing under former leader Patrick Brown. One nomination in Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas remains under police investigation.

Under Ford’s leadership, Mississauga Centre candidate and former leadership rival Tanya Granic Allen was recently let go because of offensive online posts.

Another candidate, Simmer Sandhu, resigned last week after a data breach at toll highway owner 407 ETR was uncovered, affecting 60,000 customers. Sandhu has said he will “vigorously” defend himself. Police are investigating.

Ontario’s Liberal party is alleging that Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford may have violated election laws by selling bogus party memberships. Ford calls the allegations a Liberal attempt to “change the channel.” (The Canadian Press)

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The bitter nomination contest in Etobicoke Centre has been a source of internal party strife since it was decided in November 2016.

Just days before losing the nomination to Surma, Martino filed a formal complaint with the party, accusing Surma of “discreditable conduct” and alleging that Ford followed her home and tried to intimidate her, according to an email Martino wrote to the party’s lawyer.

The email is dated Nov. 18, 2016 — three days before the nomination vote — and is addressed to Mike Richmond, counsel for the PC party.

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In it, Martino says she has been “subject to attempts to intimidate me by Doug Ford,” including his following her home after she had “attended to personal business at 22 Division of the Toronto Police Service today. Further, he waited in the vicinity of my home and followed me a second time as I attended to other business.”

Contacted by phone last week, Martino refused to comment. “I don’t want to talk to the media,” she said, before hanging up.

Both Richmond and Martino’s lawyer, Geoffrey Janoscick, who was copied on the email, declined comment.

On Thursday, Ford denied following Martino or trying to intimidate her by waiting outside her home in his black SUV.

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“That never happened.”

When a reporter questioned him “about the nature of your relationship” with Surma, who once worked for his late brother, former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, the Tory leader said he and his family have worked with many candidates over the years.

“Let me tell you, we have helped, our family, in Etobicoke Centre, we’ve helped, for the last 30 years, candidates,” Ford said. “You know the candidate that Kinga was running against? We supported her. I personally donated to her campaign. Our family helped her. We helped people for 30 years.”

A senior Conservative source, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, confirmed that Martino’s 2016 complaint was received by the party, “but we ignored it because we didn’t want to alienate Doug.”

Martino’s affidavit lists 60 people she met in the course of canvassing the riding that told her they had not paid for their membership and, in many cases, had no idea they were party members at all. They said they had been visited by Surma or Ford, or in some cases the two of them together, and informed of a nomination meeting. They said they had not paid any membership fee and, in some cases, had not signed a membership form.

In addition to serving as an adviser to Rob Ford when he was Toronto mayor, Martino was also chief of staff to longtime PC MPP Jim Wilson and Brown. Several veteran Conservatives interviewed this week by the Star said they were surprised when she lost the nomination.

In the 2016 email, Martino says she provided the party with “substantial and credible evidence of discreditable conduct on the part of Kinga Surma” without providing specifics. “It is the mandate and responsibility of the PNC to consider my complaint and, once it is substantiated, to disqualify Ms. Surma as a nomination candidate,” she wrote.

The PNC is the party’s Provincial Nomination Committee, which hears complaints related to nomination contests.

Neither current PC party president Jad Badwal nor Rick Dykstra, who was president at the time of the Etobicoke Centre nomination, responded to requests for comment.

In the email, Martino wrote that she is not interested in the party’s apparent efforts to mediate the conflict “as this is not a situation that can be mediated.”

Surma did not respond to interview requests left with her campaign office on Wednesday or Thursday. She did not attend an all-candidates debate in her riding on Wednesday night.

Ford showed an “extraordinary degree of involvement” in Surma’s campaign, said Liberal campaign co-chair Deb Matthews, adding the party took steps to “independently verify” the audio and is “confident” in its veracity, though she did not provide specifics.

“These practices contradict the rules and regulations that Mr. Ford, as leader, has pledged to enforce,” Matthew said.

In Regent Park, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said she is shocked at how the allegations about Ford and suspicious PC nominations are piling up.

“It’s a stinking mess,” she told reporters. “There are too many questions and the questions seem to grow every day,” she added. “It’s worrisome to see someone run for premier of the province and have all these questions swirling.”

Matthews said the allegations of Ford following Martino home, “to say the least, this paints a disturbing picture of Doug Ford, a man who wants to be elected premier of this province.”

In Toronto, Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne called the accusations arising out of the recording “very serious.”

“I think that people need to know about information like this if there have been breaches in terms of nominations ... People need to know about (politicians). They need to know how we behave, they need to know what our records are.”

Matthews said the allegations of paying for memberships not only violate party rules, but if “someone else is paying” it could violate election laws “by making secret donations.”

She said the current controversy surrounding Ford is “entirely in a league of its own. This is where Doug Ford talked to people, told them to ‘sign here, you don’t have to pay. Oh don’t bother filling in your address,’ and then saying ‘you don’t even have to vote.’

“This is in a complete league of its own.”

With files from Rob Ferguson

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