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OTTAWA — Outgoing Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s past became a problem during the 2019 federal election, and those vying to replace him will be grilled about theirs.

A copy of the 2020 leadership candidate application form obtained by The Canadian Press asks a number of personal questions about a candidate’s history, including one about whether they’ve ever been accused of improper sexual behaviour.

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The party says one of the reasons for the questionnaire is to help plot electoral strategy, but the answer to one question Scheer would have been asked when he ran for leader in the 2017 contest appears to have escaped the planning for last fall’s federal election.

Then, and also now, the party asks whether a candidate is or has ever been a citizen of another country.

Scheer is a dual Canadian-American citizen, but that information only became public during the campaign. The issue dogged him for days, along with a suite of other problems that forced his campaign off message.