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If true, the charges would call into question the PC leader’s frequent criticism of controversial nominations held under former leader Patrick Brown, and his mantra that he inherited a “mess” from the party’s previous administration and has been busy cleaning it up.

But Ford dismissed the allegations as a last-ditch political attack by a party that trails in third place in the polls, and has had its own nomination controversies – though the story was first reported by the National Post with only Conservative sources.

“This happened close to two years ago. It went through an appeals process. The appeal was totally dismissed,” he told reporters at a campaign stop in Tillsonburg, Ont. “This is the Liberals two weeks before an election trying to change the channel on their mismanagement, scandal and waste.”

In responding to specific charges, Ford did not go into detail.

Asked directly if he had ever paid for someone’s party membership, he said simply “No.” When asked why he had told people they didn’t have to pay for memberships, he said again that an appeal of the nomination had been dismissed by the party.

Asked if he was trying to intimidate Martino by following her, he said “That never happened.”

Ford said his focus is on winning the June 7 election and bringing in policies that would put more money in the pockets of consumers by reducing taxes, hydro rates and gas prices.

Etobicoke resident Anne Eastwood, who joined the party shortly before the nomination out of disillusionment with the Liberal government, told the Post she was appalled by what she saw at the meeting on Nov. 21, 2016, and by what some of Surma’s supporters told her there.