N.W.T. Conservatives quiet about appeal filed over federal election candidate
Conservative Party members are keeping quiet about what appears to have been a divisive process to select their Northwest Territories candidate for the next federal election.
Kimberly Fairman was officially announced as the candidate on Monday. She was running against former MLA Jackie Jacobson. In late June, the local electoral district association held a membership vote and said she'd unofficially won by a small margin. The official outcome, initially expected by July 4, was delayed for weeks because Jacobson filed an appeal of the results.
CBC News has obtained a 16-page letter that appears to lay out Jacobson's concerns about the fairness of the candidate selection process.
The letter is addressed to the executive director of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) and appears to be written by Jacobson — it has his signature at the end.
"The reason for this appeal is that throughout the nomination selection process, I experienced unfair and biased treatment from local representatives, national representatives, and Conservative Party of Canada," the letter reads.
Despite repeated calls and messages, CBC News was not able to get in touch with Jacobson to confirm whether he'd written the letter or to ask questions about the appeal.
Jacobson said in an email to his subscribers on July 12 that his appeal had been denied and that he had decided not to "pursue further options" and would be "discontinuing the nomination pursuit."
What the letter to the CPC says
The 16-page letter to the Conservative Party alleges Jacobson waited four months to get access to his nomination application, a delay that it said gave Fairman more time to get the required 25 membership signatures. The letter says getting access to the application shouldn't take more than three days.
The letter also alleges several members of the candidate nomination committee were not impartial in the nomination process. It included a 70-age annex with screenshots of emails and messages which, the letter alleges, show party officials helping gather membership votes for Fairman and endorsing her on social media.
The Conservative Party's rules for candidate nominations require the committee to remain neutral in district nomination contests.
The annex also included screenshots of Jacobson's team making multiple requests to speed up the candidate application process.
Local riding officials keeping quiet
CBC News repeatedly reached out to a number of Conservative Party officials, including members of the local riding association and the national political operations team.
Tim Syer, a national council member, declined to comment. Stewart Pallard, chair of the candidate nomination committee, deferred inquiries to electoral district association president Matthew Lakusta. Lakusta, meanwhile, said they hadn't received any information from the national party.
Attempts to contact Alex Osorio and Jeremy Liedtke from the party's national political operations team were unsuccessful.
Lakusta later responded to CBC News on July 19 saying the party had determined the election to be fair. He said they hadn't had a full discussion about the allegations in the letter, but denied that there was "any inappropriate impartiality." He did not explain why the appeal was rejected.
