The Progressive Conservatives are overturning controversial candidate nomination elections in Scarborough and Ottawa, as the party scrambles to fix problems from the Patrick Brown era.

Officials with the Tories’ provincial nominations committee on Friday night moved to toss out the results of dubious candidate elections in Scarborough Centre and Ottawa West-Nepean.

Former PC president Ken Zeise, a co-chair of the committee, said the “unanimous decision” was to hold new nomination meetings in the two ridings.

New candidate nominations will be held in time for the June 7 election, said Zeise.

Prior to the decision, Scarborough Centre candidate Thenusha Parani and Ottawa West-Nepean candidate Karma Macgregor issued a joint statement condemning the actions.

“We have learned today that there are actions being taken against a number of candidates by certain individuals based on rumours and innuendos,” the rookie candidates said.

“What’s more, we have not been asked for or provided an opportunity to provide our perspective,” they said. “Yet, sadly, today, we find more women are being targeted unfairly.

“We call on the leadership candidates Caroline Mulroney, Christine Elliot and Doug Ford, and interim leader Vic Fedeli, to put an end to this, so we can move forward collectively and focus on defeating the . . . Liberals in June as a team.”

Both had been approved by Brown, who resigned Jan. 25 after allegations of sexual impropriety involving teenage girls when he was a Conservative MP. He has denied any wrongdoing.

As previously reported in the Star, about a dozen PC candidate nominations across Ontario have ended chaotically, including the one in Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas, which is now the focus of a Hamilton Police investigation into allegations of criminal fraud and forgery.

Because of the police probe, the Tories decided not to overturn the nomination.

They also chose to leave in place the result in Newmarket-Aurora, where 14 Tory riding officials quit after voting problems there last April.

In Ottawa West-Nepean, Macgregor won by 15 votes over runner-up Jeremy Roberts last May, in an election where there were 28 more ballots in boxes than people who had registered to vote.

The local riding association executive resigned en masse after that fiasco as did a party vice-president.

In Scarborough Centre, there were so many irregularities at Parani’s June nomination that former Tory cabinet minister Marilyn Mushinski, the last Tory to represent the riding, went public to voice her outrage.

The PC changes come as part of a post-Brown purge.

His allies in the party, including former PC executive director Bob Stanley, a kingpin in the nomination process, have been removed by Fedeli from key jobs.

Former PC president Rick Dykstra was forced to resign two weeks ago after sexual assault allegations were leveled against him. Dykstra has maintained he did nothing wrong.

Liberal Economic Development Minister Steven Del Duca said the Conservatives’ nomination difficulties should alarm voters with the spring election approaching.

“There are significant problems and questions with respect to what’s taking place in the Ontario PC Party,” said Del Duca.

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“Just a number of days ago, their interim leader stood in front of the people of Ontario and explicitly said that there’s so much ‘rot’ that has to be, sort of, rooted out from within that party . . . it’s disturbing,” he said.

Del Duca added the Tories have also abandoned Brown’s People’s Guarantee platform, meaning “they have no plan whatsoever,” because, without a carbon tax, they can’t afford to fund their 147 campaign promises.

“They now have a $16-billion hole in their plan. They’re going to have to cut health care . . . close hospitals and cut education and scrap infrastructure programs and do so much more that is reckless and . . . irresponsible and . . . will cause serious, serious damage to the people of Ontario.”

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