OTTAWA–Derek Sloan is facing a potential showdown with his fellow Conservative MPs after the leadership candidate refused to apologize for questioning the loyalty of Canada’s chief public health officer.

In an emergency regional caucus meeting Tuesday night, Ontario MPs voted to demand an apology from the rookie MP for asking if Dr. Theresa Tam worked for Canada or for China. If he refused, two Conservative sources told the Star MPs were prepared to call for a vote to kick Sloan out of caucus.

In a statement Wednesday evening, Sloan decided to take that chance.

“The question regarding whether she works ‘for Canada’ or ‘for China’ was a rhetorical one,” Sloan wrote in a letter posted to his social media feeds.

“I am not questioning Dr. Tam’s loyalty to Canada, and of course Justin Trudeau is ultimately responsible for following her advice. But, in both cases, I am questioning their judgment and their competency to do the job, not their motives.”

Sloan, the MP for Hastings-Lennox and Addington, has faced widespread criticism — including from within his own party — for questioning Tam’s loyalty to Canada.

In a video posted to social media last week, Sloan suggested Tam was spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic, accused her of “parroting” lines from the World Health Organization, and asked if Tam — who was born in Hong Kong — was “working for Canada or working for China.”

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer initially refused to condemn Sloan’s comments when asked about them last week. However, he told reporters on Monday that he didn’t agree with them.

“I believe it is not appropriate to question someone’s loyalty to their country,” Scheer said. “I believe that is a very serious accusation that you have to have some very substantial evidence to make.”

The push by Ontario caucus members to have Sloan apologize — and his refusal to do so — could put pressure on Scheer to take a stronger stand. But one Conservative source told the Star last week that Scheer may be reluctant to be drawn into a conversation about the candidates vying to replace him.

Sloan is one of two socially conservative candidates running for the party leadership — the other is Leslyn Lewis — in a four-person contest that’s widely seen as a two-way race between former cabinet ministers Peter MacKay and Erin O’Toole.

Multiple sources suggested that leadership politics was playing a role in the debate Tuesday night. The Ontario caucus includes at least 12 MPs and two senators who have endorsed MacKay.

MacKay was the last leader of the Progressive Conservative party before its merger with the Canadian Alliance. He has previously raised the ire of social conservatives by referring to their causes as a “stinking albatross” that hung around Scheer’s neck during the 2019 election.

O’Toole’s campaign has repeatedly made the point that all types of conservatives would be welcome under his leadership. Four sources confirmed O’Toole participated in the Ontario caucus meeting Tuesday.

The MacKay campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for O’Toole said they don’t comment on matters of caucus confidentiality.

While both Scheer and Stephen Harper repeatedly vowed not to reopen debate on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, the “so-cons” still carry considerable weight — and organizing power — within the Conservative movement.

In an email to supporters earlier this week, the anti-abortion lobby group Campaign Life Coalition urged its supports to “save” Sloan’s candidacy and his place within the Conservative caucus.

“At first, Andrew Scheer brushed off media suggestions that Sloan should be ejected from the Conservative Party caucus and blocked from continuing to run as a leadership candidate … Good for Andrew, so we thought,” the organization wrote.

“But after a few days of intense hounding by journalists, Scheer finally cracked … Scheer refused to say whether or not he would expel Derek Sloan.”

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Campaign Life urged its members to call Conservative MPs to “demand that they defend Sloan against any effort to either disqualify him from the leadership race or expel him from caucus.”

Sloan, meanwhile, blamed the whole episode on Liberal MPs and media outlets for pushing a “deliberate mischaracterization of my critique of Dr. Tam.”

Conservative caucus is expected to meet via video conference next Wednesday.

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