Fredericton entrepreneur planned to influence 8 PC nominations, Tories say

A Fredericton entrepreneur who made a controversial proposal for the Charlotte County Hospital in St. Stephen was also trying to encourage nomination challenges to several Progressive Conservative MLAs, according to several PC party members.

Jamal Instrum had a plan to influence eight PC nominating conventions to prevent sitting MLAs in those ridings from running in next year's election, they say.

Instrum supported PC member Chris Duffie's unsuccessful lawsuit to force the party to let him run for the nomination against Carleton-York MLA Carl Urquhart.

When Duffie's nominating fight ended up in court last month, "my first question was, 'Where was Jamal?'" said John Gardner, a Saint Andrews resident and former co-chair of the Concerned Citizens of Charlotte County, a group fighting cutbacks at the hospital.

The eight MLAs Instrum wanted to defeat were Urquhart, Pam Lynch, Bruce Fitch, Trevor Holder, Dorothy Shephard, Madeleine Dube, Ted Flemming and Ross Wetmore.

Instrum also told members of the Concerned Citizens of Charlotte County that he was a key link to the PC party, Gardner said.

"According to Mr. Instrum, he was in pretty much constant contact with the party," Gardner said.

"Once [Blaine] Higgs was the leader, he was in constant contact with Higgs, talking all the time to him. He was the go-to guy for the PC party. That was what we were told."

Instrum would not agree to an interview with CBC News.

On June 5, town officials in St. Stephen rejected Instrum's proposal to use $50 million in private investor money to create a private-sector post-traumatic stress disorder research centre at the hospital. They said the proposal lacked key details.

Instrum's promotion of the proposal took place at the same time he was working behind the scenes to influence the PC party nominations, Gardner said, and the two efforts sometimes overlapped.

The PC party president, Don Moore, said Instrum is a member of the party but doesn't hold any position with it.

A spokesperson for Higgs said he would not comment on whether he was in "constant contact" with Instrum.

Nomination challenges

Instrum supported Duffie's nomination bid and his subsequent lawsuit against the party after it disqualified him.

Duffie was one day late filing his nomination papers for the race, a delay he blamed on the party not prominently advertising the convention to protect Urquhart, the sitting MLA, from a nomination challenge.

Instrum videotaped Duffie's attempt to deliver his nomination papers to the PC office. He also accompanied Duffie to his court hearings last month, where a judge ruled the PC party followed the rules and didn't have to put Duffie on the ballot.

"I guess he'd be an associate, a buddy," Duffie said of Instrum.

Duffie said Instrum planned to target seven other sitting PC MLAs by encouraging others to run against them for their nominations.

Moore confirmed he was aware of that.

"I've heard that he has an active interest in the nomination process around the province."

Ted Flemming, the Rothesay MLA, said he heard second-hand that he was one of the Tory MLAs on the list Instrum was targeting.

"I had heard that he had identified seven or eight people on a list," said Flemming, who emphasized he had not spoken to Instrum about it. "This is all hearsay."

As health minister in the Alward government, Flemming turned down a proposal from Instrum to have the province install medical diagnostic equipment he was selling in New Brunswick hospitals. Instrum would provide the machines for free and collect a fee for every scan.

Flemming said he had no idea whether he was on Instrum's nomination-challenge list because he rejected the equipment proposal.

"I could never find out where his status in the PC party came from," Flemming added.

'A little break'

After Duffie's court case, the party began scheduling other nominating conventions, some in ridings held by MLAs on Instrum's list.

Duffie said he recently met with Higgs to try to resolve his dispute with the party. He said Instrum wasn't at the meeting.

"We're taking a little break right now."

"This is just me," Duffie added. "I don't need someone to interpret what I'm saying. Sometimes it's good to have a one-on-one with someone."

Duffie suggested the day he lost in court that he might run outside the PC tent, but he says now, "I have no intention of running as an independent and I have no intention of flipping parties."

'Vote for Trudy'

At the same time Instrum was advancing his hospital proposal, he was attending meetings of the PC party riding association for the St. Croix constituency, Gardner said.

Despite living in Fredericton, "he wanted very much to influence our board of directors," Gardner said.

He said it appeared Instrum was trying to get "his people" chosen to sit on the riding association's board to help Trudy Higgins, the other co-chair of the Concerned Citizens group, become the PC candidate for next year's election. Urquhart said she doesn't remember that.

Jennifer Urquhart, the president of the PC riding association, said she recalled Instrum's attendance at one meeting.

"He just showed up and took over the meeting" and raised several political issues, she said. "It was really bizarre."

But she said she didn't recall Instrum trying to influence who was on the board or promote Higgins as a candidate.

She and Gardner both said Instrum was supporting PC MLA Jake Stewart's leadership bid.

Stewart said Monday that "turning away supporters" wouldn't have made sense for his grassroots campaign. He said his team eventually discovered Instrum actually supported former MP Mike Allen.

Instrum business associate Brian Cheney, from Pennfield, also attended meetings, Gardner said, "which seemed a bit curious to me. Why would anyone from another riding be interested in doing work with a riding that is not their own?"

Gardner said Instrum's appearance at the PC meetings created an overlap between his hospital proposal and his PC involvement. One meeting of the Concerned Citizens group in January "very quickly turned into a 'vote for Trudy' meeting," he said.

"At that point, the mission of the [group] had changed from doing what was right … to 'let's get Trudy elected.' That was never the intention of the group. It was never supposed to be a partisan body."