In the days since Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch used the party’s first official debate to announce she shares “common interests with Donald Trump”, a number of non-Conservatives — including a former Green Party president, a former Green candidate and a campaign manager — have been encouraging like-minded friends to join the party in an effort to thwart her.

Toronto-based Gonzalo Riva, who doesn’t appear to have a link to Greens, seems to have been the first to raise the possibility the afternoon of November 10, the day after the first debate in Saskatoon.

“If you have an internet connection and 15 bucks to spare, please go join the Conservative Party. Yes, that’s right. Then you get to vote in their leadership contest coming up. Which means you get a say in who they pick — specifically, to vote against Kellie Leitch, who’s already gearing up to be Canada’s Trump,” he wrote on his Facebook wall.

Though Riva’s post has been shared 286 times, he got a mixed response from his progressive Facebook friends. A number said they followed his advice and called it a “great idea”, while others questioned the wisdom of giving the party money, dismissing it as “risky” and a “terrible idea”

On November 11, former Green Party president Dave Bagler noted in a Facebook post that Leitch is “channelling Trump’s dog whistle rhetoric to gather support” and announced he’d already joined the CPC to block her from within.

“While I may find the members of Kellie’s Konservative Klub deplorable, I can’t deny the fact that I look a lot like them. They are my people, and if I sit back and let them take over a national political party, I shoulder part of the blame,” he said.

“So I’m taking my guilt, my fear and my anger, and I’m using those emotions to fight back. I’ve joined the Conservative Party of Canada for the duration of their leadership race to support those candidates for leader who reject fear and intolerance. I hope you will consider doing the same.”

Kevin O’Donnell, the Green Party’s candidate in Ottawa-Centre in the 2014 provincial election, is also on board:

“Join the Conservative Party. Vote for its next leader.” It’s bad for Canada if CPC is run by a hateful leader.https://t.co/6pKAMJ2nfw — Kevin O’Donnell (@ODonnell_K) November 11, 2016

“Joining the CPC to vote against hateful leadership candidates keeps feeling more and more like the right decision,” he wrote on Facebook.

Sonia Théroux, who manged the 2015 federal election campaign of Jo-Ann Roberts in Victoria, is another.

“Here’s a thought: Canada’s very own Trump devotee, Kellie Leitch, is reportedly in the lead in the Conservative leadership race,” she wrote on her Facebook page.

“Meanwhile, they actually have some good options that seek to move the CPC in a different direction. How about we citizens and organizers rally around another candidate, no matter our political stripes?”

On Saturday, a woman named Gretchen McCulloch — who also has no obvious Green Party connections — announced that she had just joined the Conservative party. That caught the attention of Leitch’s campaign manager, Nick Kouvalis. He first retweeted McCulloch, then warned Conservatives about other outsiders affecting the race.

Pay attention folks. Proud Liberals are promoting their choice for the CPC leadership https://t.co/MlTqUuvvh5 — Nick Kouvalis (@NickKouvalis) November 13, 2016

“I have just become a paying member of the Conservative Party of Canada. This is not a joke. This is the thing that I believe is the most effective thing I can do at the moment to stop the spread of Trumpism into Canada. It took $15 and about 3 minutes, and I encourage fellow Canadians to do likewise,” McCulloch wrote in her Facebook post.

“People have been talking about sending letters to Kellie Leitch, and I intend to do this as well, but there is a more direct way to ensure that the right wing of Canadian politics does not get overtaken by xenophobia and demagoguery.”

Unlike some others, McCulloch correctly noted that those wanting to join the CPC to stop Leitch can’t be members of other federal parties.

Section 4 of the Conservative Party constitution states that membership is not open to “an individual holding a membership in another federal political party”.

Bagler, however, was aware of the requirement, and clarified that he meets all of them. Canadian citizenship, being 14 or older, and personally paying the membership fee are some of the others.

“I totally understand that some people are just not going to be comfortable doing this…You should only do this if you can legitimately do it. You shouldn’t be trying to trying to bend their rules. But Kevin (O’Donnell) and myself — we’re both non-members of a federal political party,” he said.

“We have to take full responsibility for all our parties. We can’t just let a national party move towards the fringes, because sometimes even when they take a huge step towards the fringe — they still win.”

Though it’s early days still, Bagler said discussions are already underway this week to better organize people.

“We’re going to start reaching out,” he said.

With files from Janice Dickson