Patrick Brown could be filling up the docket at an Ontario courthouse if he’s denied a leadership bid today.

Former Simcoe North MPP Garfield Dunlop, who is currently volunteering in Brown’s Queen’s Park office, said the ex-Progressive Conservative Party leader will likely launch legal action if the party’s provincial nominations committee denies his attempt to re-seek the leadership.

Brown is taking another shot at the leadership, a post he vacated in late January after being accused by two women of sexual misconduct.

“After what Patrick has done for the party, the money he’s raised and the good candidates we’ve come up with, I can’t believe they would try not to let him run,” Dunlop said prior to Brown’s meeting last night with the nominations committee. “If that was the case, I could see him taking major legal action. Anybody that’s reasonable, with a brain in their head, would let Patrick continue on in this race. He’s the guy that built the party to this stage. He deserves every opportunity to … lead the party to victory in the June election.”

Scott Macpherson, a friend of the Brown family, vice-president of the Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte association and past president in Simcoe North, said he expects a committee decision around 1 p.m.

He noted he doesn’t know which direction the committee is leaning. There are five candidates in the running: Brown, political rookie Caroline Mulroney, former Toronto Coun. Doug Ford, ex-MPP Christine Elliott and parent activist Tanya Granic Allen.

Brown said his name was cleared after CTV News, which reported the sexual-misconduct allegations, changed two key elements of the piece. The women say the core of their allegations are true, and CTV also stands by its story.

But Brown said in a recent Facebook post that he is suing the broadcaster.

Dunlop’s comments are the latest development in a historical stretch for Ontario politics that may not have an end in sight.

Within the last week, the chief financial officer in each of the two PC riding associations with direct ties to Brown — Simcoe North, where he currently serves as MPP, and Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte, where he’s the nominated candidate for June’s provincial election — stepped aside. Party officials told Simcoe.com there was “no untoward reason” behind the decisions.