OTTAWA—The pre-election war for votes between the New Democrats and Greens continues to intensify as news of mass defections from one party to the other turned to denials, condemnations of racism and accusations of poor leadership on Thursday.

And the man at the centre of it all, a former NDP executive who joined his mother in heralding an exodus of failed New Brunswick provincial candidates from the NDP to the Greens, is refusing to explain how the tally of defectors was really — according to a late-day statement from the Greens — barely half as big as he originally claimed.

Throughout the day Thursday, the NDP and Greens thrashed each other for engaging in unsavoury politics amidst the fallout of an announcement Tuesday that 14 failed NDP candidates in the 2018 New Brunswick election had defected from their party to support both the provincial and federal Greens.

Speaking in Montreal, federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh declared that this amounted to a “fiasco” of false information, and called on the federal Green Leader, Elizabeth May, to clarify what really happened. Moments later, Singh’s party published joint statements from five of the supposed defectors, who denied that they ever agreed to flip from the NDP to the Greens.

“This is a fiasco that the Green party started. They put out a list of people, they spread some false information, and I think really the question has to go to them,” Singh told reporters in Montreal.

“Really, it speaks to an act of desperation, maybe, by Ms. May and the Green party,” he said.

Later, after declining to respond to the NDP’s claims earlier in the day, the federal Greens put out there own statement that said it was really only seven former candidates — not 14 — that agreed to defect from the NDP. That corresponded with what Marco Morency, the executive director of the provincial Greens in New Brunswick, told the Star earlier in the day.

The statement also echoed Morency’s claim that the NDP was pressuring the group of defectors to renege on their decision and return to the New Democratic fold.

“To me this is vicious, old politics, and the Green party would not stand for it,” he told the Star by phone Thursday.

The back-and-forth began on Tuesday, when former NDP executive Jonathan Richardson staged a press conference in Moncton alongside a number of former provincial candidates to announce that 15 of them — 14 former candidates, plus Richardson — were leaving the NDP to join the provincial and federal Greens.

Richardson told the Star that day that he was concerned that Singh has never visited New Brunswick as party leader, and that the federal New Democrats have yet to nominate a single candidate in the province for the federal election on Oct. 21.

In a separate interview with The Canadian Press, Richardson added that he felt Singh’s race — the NDP leader is Sikh and his parents are immigrants from India — is a factor that leads some prospective candidates to conclude they couldn’t win under his leadership.

That sparked a response from the NDP, with spokesperson Mélanie Richer calling Richardson’s words “disappointing” and stating they don’t give New Brunswickers or Canadians enough credit. On Twitter, prominent NDP MP Charlie Angus said Richardson claimed “voters were racist” and that he exaggerated the number of defectors to “make a big splash.”

“So grotty,” Angus wrote.

In her party’s statement Thursday, May pushed back against what the party called “accusations of racism” and condemned the notion that people wouldn’t vote for Singh because of his race.

She went on to slam Singh failing to visit New Brunswick while she has been to the province three times since he became leader in 2017.

“No wonder New Brunswick NDPers were disillusioned,” she wrote. “Being a federal party leader is hard work. And you have to show up. It is for Mr. Singh to determine his priorities. I will not attack him. But it certainly would discourage his membership never to see their leader.”

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It remains unclear how or why Richardson and the Greens claimed 14 former candidates in New Brunswick had defected from the NDP, when they now say it was really seven.

Morency, the provincial Green executive director, said Richardson provided the party with a list of names and that the party agreed to arrange a press conference. On Tuesday, Richardson was joined by his mother Joyce — who ran unsuccessfully for the provincial NDP last year — and provincial Green leader David Coon.

Richer, the NDP spokesperson, suggested to the Star that Richardson and his mother resent the party for rejecting her provincial leadership bid due to vetting concerns — but Richardson denied this was the case in an interview with the Star on Tuesday.

Richardson refused to answer questions Thursday and the Star was unable to reach Joyce Richardson for comment.

Two days later, on Thursday, five of the candidates named as defectors issued joint statements through the NDP that they never agreed to leave the party.

Jean-Maurice Landry, who ran last year in the provincial riding of Bathurst Est—Nepisiguit-Saint Isidore, said Richardson’s mother contacted him Monday night to ask if he would support a merger between the provincial NDP and the Greens. He said he told her he would, so long as the party membership was on board.

But then, on Wednesday, he said he learned his name was included on a list of defectors who renounced the NDP for the Greens.

“I was surprised to hear that. It wasn’t what was presented to me,” he said.

Another of the candidates, Francis Duguay, told Radio-Canada he was “stupefied” to see his name included on the list of defectors.

Asked why he wouldn’t explain why the list included these names, Richardson replied via Facebook: “because it’s interfering with my work with vulnerable people and now they need me to be on my A game.”

Correction - September 5, 2019: This article originally stated the number of candidates that agreed to defect from the NDP as eight. In fact, it was seven, according to the federal Green Party.

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