Derek Sloan will be removed from the Conservative caucus and barred from running as the Conservative candidate in the next election, party leader Erin O’Toole said in a statement Monday evening.
The ousting comes hours after a Press Progress report that Sloan’s leadership campaign received a $131 donation from notorious Canadian white supremacist Paul Fromm.
The donation, one of 13,000 made to Sloan’s leadership campaign, was made under the name “Frederick P. Fromm.”
“Derek Sloan’s acceptance of a donation from a well-known white supremacist is far worse than a gross error of judgement or failure of due diligence,” wrote O’Toole. “Racism is a disease of the soul, repugnant to our core values. It has no place in our country. It has no place in the Conservative Party of Canada. I won’t tolerate it.”
O’Toole said he’s initiated the process to remove a member of parliament from his party’s caucus, which he said will “be done as quickly as possible.”
“Moreover, as Leader of Canada’s Conservatives, I will not allow Mr. Sloan to run as a candidate for our party,” he added.
Sloan has since denied that he had knowledge of the donation, citing the fact that his campaign raised well over $1.3 million.
“Paul Fromm is a notorious name to some, but not to everyone, and clearly this name, mixed as it was in the midst of thousands of other donations, did not ring any bells to my team,” Sloan said, noting he was not aware of the donation until the Press Progress article Monday afternoon.
“On any given day we had upwards of hundreds of different donations, and my team, which was run in many cases by volunteers, processed cheques and other things. At no time was I ever aware of this donation.”
According to Sloan, he has since contacted the Conservative party’s executive director to return the donation.
I see people cheering this decision because of a dislike for Sloan. The process behind these things should matter more than the outcome. It's unreasonable that a campaign with 13,000 donors and a skeletal volunteer team would be vetting every donation manually.
— Andrew Lawton (@AndrewLawton) January 19, 2021
