Federal prosecutors are on the case of a Progressive Conservative candidate election under criminal investigation amid allegations of forgery and fraud.

Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General has asked the Public Prosecution Service of Canada to handle the matter that has been investigated by Hamilton Police since last June.

That’s to avoid the appearance of any conflict of interest because the Liberal government could be perceived as looking into the rival Progressive sConservatives.

“It is not the practice of the Ministry of the Attorney General to comment on the status of any ongoing investigation, unless and until a charge has been laid,” the department’s Emilie Smith said in an email.

“In appropriate cases, the ministry may delegate legal authority over a matter to another prosecution service. In this case, the assistant deputy attorney general, criminal law division, has delegated legal authority over this matter to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada,” said Smith.

Nathalie Houle, a spokesperson for the PPSC, confirmed Wednesday that “the legal authority of the prosecution function has been delegated” to federal prosecutors, but could not comment on the legal status of the case.

“The PPSC does not discuss which cases it may be reviewing,” Houle said from Ottawa.

Hamilton Police said their investigation continues as the clock ticks down toward a provincial election in less than five months.

“We are still working on the case, and there is no further information to provide at this time,” said Hamilton Police Const. Lorraine Edwards.

Conservative officials declined to comment on Wednesday.

At issue is a disputed Tory candidate nomination last May in Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas.

Following a raucous riding election meeting, Vikram Singh, a Hamilton lawyer and runner-up in the four-candidate contest, launched a civil action against the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario alleging “wrongful insertion of false ballots.”

Singh named Tory leader Patrick Brown, PC president Rick Dykstra, executive director Bob Stanley, and senior Brown aide Logan Bugeja in the suit.

The Conservatives deny any wrongdoing in the case and the allegations have not been proven in court.

Singh also filed a complaint with police and the criminal investigation is separate from the civil action.

Brown has emphasized that the Tories are co-operating with police.

“We’ve offered full disclosure. Our office disclosed everything that was asked he said last month, referring to two banker’s boxes of documents handed over to police by the party on Oct. 27.

But Brown has denied anyone in his inner circle is subject to the police probe.

“No one in my office, no one on my campaign team, no one in our headquarters, is under investigation,” he said Dec. 1.

According to court documents filed by Hamilton Police in November, Det. Const. Adam Jefferess obtained an “order of detention” to allow for additional time to examine material obtained from the party’s lawyer.

With an election set for June 7, the Tories are anxious for the matter to be resolved sooner rather than later.

Last month, New Democrat MPP Gilles Bisson (Timmins-James Bay) asked Attorney General Yasir Naqvi to move the PC case out of Ontario’s jurisdiction by passing it on to federal prosecutors.

That is what happened in the 2015 Sudbury byelection case that resulted in the acquittal of two Liberals and in the deleted documents trial expected to conclude with a verdict Friday in Toronto.

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“There are currently two top Liberal operatives waiting to hear the court’s verdict . . . ,” Bisson said in December.

“In that case, before any charges were laid, the attorney general made the decision to pass the case to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada,” he said.

“We believe that was the right thing to do — and we believe it’s the right thing to do in the case of the Conservatives as well.”

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