The Mayor of Brampton, Patrick Brown, has officially declared his desire to be Canada’s next Prime Minister.
The Mayor confirmed weeks-long speculation and officially joined the race to become the Conservative Party of Canada’s next leader during a recent announcement at Queen’s Manor Event Centre in Brampton.
While talking to supporters that attended the event, Brown said: “I’m a fighter, I’m (a) leader (and) I’m a winner. Stand with me and stand together for a better future for Canada.”
The 43-year-old Mayor has been modest about his desire to join the race since the Conservatives removed their last leader Erin O’Toole last month amid rampant media speculation that the first-term mayor was considering it.
Now that the speculation is over, he will hit the CPC leadership campaign trail with the party expected to elect its next leader on September 10.
Brown has served at every level of government. At the age of 22, he began his career in municipal politics as a city councillor in Barrie. He then proceeded to federal sitting as a Barrie MP between 2006 and 2015.
From there, Brown was chosen to lead the Ontario Progressive Conservative (PC) party and sat as an MPP for the Simcoe North riding until 2018 before he resigned as party leader amid allegations of sexual impropriety and was replaced by current Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
Brown debunked the allegations and filed a lawsuit against CTV News, who broke the story, for $8 million and published a book titled “Takedown: The attempted political assassination of Patrick Brown.”
Recently, the lawsuit was settled with CTV News and its parent company, Bell Media, admitting to inaccuracies in their reporting and issuing a public apology.
To the applauding crowd, Brown said: “When the media tried to make me cancel culture’s latest victim by smearing me with false allegations I fought back and won.”
After he resigned as PC party leader, Brown entered the Peel Region council chair election before the Ford government annulled the election and made it an appointed position shortly after assuming office in 2018.
Brown then joined the Brampton mayoral race and defeated incumbent Mayor Linda Jeffrey in the fall 2018 municipal elections.
Brown has always described himself as a lifelong conservative and has advocated for many more left-leaning policies, like LGBTQ rights, environmental issues and others while mostly remaining right-of-centre fiscally.
He said: “As a leader, I will stand with a conviction for what we as conservatives believe in.
“I will unite us and we will win. It’s one thing to say you’re running for prime minister, it’s another thing to actually be able to deliver on that.
“Conservatives deserve more than a leader who is an attack dog in opposition, but will never be prime minister because they’ve already turned off many Canadians that we have to inspire to win a federal election.”
