

Chris Fox, CP24.com





A longtime Tory MPP says that she shared information about Patrick Brown with a member of his campaign team on ‘two or three’ occasions prior to his abrupt resignation amid sexual misconduct allegations.

PC MPP Lisa MacLeod made the comment to reporters ahead of a caucus meeting to appoint a new interim leader on Friday morning.

She said that she heard “similar things” about Brown and in December she shared that information with Dimitri Soudas , who was volunteering in the then Tory leader’s war room.

“I am not a police officer, I am not a private investigator but certainly when I heard issues about women I would bring those forward,” she said. “People would tell me things so I would float it up the flag pole.”

MacLeod initially said that she would prefer to keep the specific nature of the information she shared “confidential,” however she later told reporters that it largely concerned rumours regarding Brown’s time working in Ottawa as a Member of Parliament.

MacLeod said those rumours partly revolved around allegations of “inappropriate touching.”

“There were a lot of rumours that we would hear. I am from Ottawa so I would hear these things from another period of time,” she said.

Soudas says he urged MacLeod to inform caucus

In a series of messages posted to Twitter on Friday, Soudas confirmed that MacLeod did inform him about “rumours and allegations” with regards to Brown.

Soudas said that he “strongly urged” MacLeod to raise the issue with Brown himself or the PC caucus, something he said that she did not do.

Soudas said that he didn’t feel as those it was his place to deal with the information as he was only a volunteer.

For her part, MacLeod said that she chose to go to Soudas with the information because she felt comfortable with him.

MacLeod said she did not take the information to any senior campaign or party officials. m

“I didn’t have a lot of trust in a lot of Patrick Brown’s people so when you find someone that you can trust that may or may not have been at the top of the food chain, I did that,” she said.

MacLeod said that she does not know whether other caucus members may have brought information forward but she said that there “were lots of things that were percolating that a lot of people heard.”

Brown resigned early Thursday morning amid sexual misconduct allegations. He has said that the allegations are 'categorically untrue” and has vowed to remain a MPP while he “definitively” clears his name.

His sister defended him in a Facebook post Friday morning.