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OTTAWA — The race to win the Conservative leadership is getting increasingly crowded, with two more candidates — one a defeated MP and one a former cabinet minister — set to join the contest.

Quebec MP and former public safety minister Steven Blaney, as well as former Vancouver-area Conservative MP Andrew Saxton, will both announce within the next two weeks they are joining the leadership race, the Ottawa Citizen has learned.

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Their entry into the race means there are now nearly a dozen candidates who have either declared their candidacy or are expected to in the coming days before the first party-sanctioned leadership debate Nov. 9 in Saskatoon.

Saxton, 52, is a former two-term Conservative MP who lost his North Vancouver seat in last year’s federal election. He served as a parliamentary secretary to the president of the Treasury Board and later to finance ministers Jim Flaherty and Joe Oliver.