In 2022, the Conservative Party of Canada held a leadership election to elect the successor to Erin O'Toole. He was removed on February 2, 2022, as leader by the party's caucus in the House of Commons of Canada by a vote of 73–45.

Five candidates were running for the position, including former Cabinet minister and Member of Parliament Pierre Poilievre, former Cabinet minister, former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, and former Quebec Premier Jean Charest, Member of Parliament Leslyn Lewis, Member of Parliament Scott Aitchison, and Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament Roman Baber. Former member of parliament, former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, and Brampton, Ontario Mayor Patrick Brown also ran for the position, but was disqualified in early July due to his campaign's alleged violations of the financial provisions of the Canada Elections Act.

On September 10, it was announced that Poilievre won the leadership on the first ballot. This was the party's first leadership election since 2004 which resulted in a first-ballot victory.

After the race, the whistleblower who alleged violation on Brown's campaign was revealed to have their legal fees paid by the Poilievre campaign. In addition, there have been reports that Patrick Brown's bid in the leadership race was a target of foreign interference from the Indian government, due to his affiliation with Khalistani-separatist groups based in Canada. In March 2025, The Globe and Mail reported that according to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Indian agents had done some organizing on behalf of Poilievre, though they did not have evidence that any senior Conservatives were aware.

Background

Following the 2021 Canadian federal election, the Conservative Party remained the Official Opposition with a loss of two seats, leaving it with 119 seats in the House of Commons. O'Toole announced that he had enough support to remain leader, and launched a review of the Conservative election campaign. James Cumming was selected to lead the review.

In November 2021, Senator Denise Batters launched an internal party petition to review O'Toole's leadership. Party president Robert Batherson quickly decided the petition was not in order. The following day, Batters was removed from the National Conservative Caucus, although she retained her membership in the Saskatchewan Conservative Caucus and the Conservative Senate Caucus.

In late January 2022, Cumming completed his review and briefed Conservative MPs and senators on his findings. His report blamed party staff for "over managing" O'Toole during the campaign, and said O'Toole needed to be more "authentic" and Conservatives failed to craft policy on some issues. In response to the report, O'Toole acknowledged that he needed to appear less "scripted" during the final days of the campaign.

On January 31, 2022, Conservative MP Bob Benzen submitted a letter with signatures from 35 Conservative MPs calling for a leadership review, pursuant to the Reform Act, of O'Toole's leadership to the Conservative caucus chair, Scott Reid. In the letter, Benzen criticized O'Toole's reversal on repealing Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's carbon tax and assault weapons ban.

This was the first time the Reform Act leadership-removal provisions were invoked. During the review, held on February 2, 2022, 45 MPs voted to retain him against 73 who voted for his removal. Immediately following his removal the Conservative caucus voted by secret ballot to appoint Candice Bergen as interim leader.

Leadership review of Erin O'Toole Confidence No confidence

In addition to Bergen, eight other caucus members sought to be appointed interim leader, including John Barlow, John Brassard, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Marilyn Gladu, Tom Kmiec, Rob Moore and John Williamson.

Timeline

2020

August 23–24 – Erin O'Toole was elected as Conservative Party leader in the 3rd round of voting.

2021

September 20 – The 2021 Canadian federal election was held. The Conservative Party remained the Official Opposition with a loss of two seats, leaving it with 119 seats in the House of Commons. October 5 – O'Toole announced that he intended to remain leader and launched post election review of the Conservative campaign. November 15 – Senator Denise Batters launched a petition to review the leadership of Erin O'Toole. Party president Robert Batherson decided the petition was not in order. The following day, Batters was removed from the national Conservative caucus, although her memberships were retained in the Saskatchewan Conservative caucus and in the Conservative Senate caucus.

2022

January 27 – The post election review was completed. Its author, James Cumming, briefed Conservative MPs and Senators on his findings. January 31 – 35 Conservative MPs submitted a letter to the Conservative caucus chair, triggering the leadership review, pursuant to the Reform Act. February 2 – Conservative Members of Parliament voted to remove Erin O'Toole as party leader by a vote of 73 to 45. The caucus chose deputy leader Candice Bergen as interim leader. February 5 – Pierre Poilievre announced his candidacy. February 9 – Senator Denise Batters is reinstated in the National Conservative Party caucus. March 8 – Leslyn Lewis announced her candidacy. March 9 – Roman Baber, Joseph Bourgault, and Jean Charest announced their candidacies. March 13 – Patrick Brown announced his candidacy. March 16 – Scott Aitchison announced his candidacy. March 18 – Bobby Singh announced his candidacy. March 20 – Marc Dalton announced his candidacy. March 26 – Leona Alleslev announced her candidacy. March 28 – Joel Etienne announced his candidacy. March 29 – Grant Abraham announced his candidacy. April 4 – The Conservative Party confirmed to Postmedia that Leslyn Lewis met the requirements to become a verified candidate. April 12 – The Conservative Party announced that Jean Charest and Pierre Poilievre met the requirements to become verified candidates. April 19 – Deadline to announce leadership candidacy April 26 – The Conservative Party announced that Roman Baber and Patrick Brown met the requirements to become verified candidates. April 28 – The Conservative Party announced that Scott Aitchison met the requirements to become a verified candidate April 29 – Deadline to submit all endorsement signatures, full registration fee, and full compliance deposit in order to become a verified candidate and appear on the ballot May 2 – The Conservative Party announced that the final verified candidates were Scott Aitchison, Roman Baber, Patrick Brown, Jean Charest, Leslyn Lewis, and Pierre Poilievre. May 5 – Canada Strong and Free Network debate. May 11 – First Official Candidates' debate (English). May 25 – Second Official Candidates' debate (French). June 3 – Deadline to sign-up new members; June 30 – Candidates given preliminary list of party membership and given until midnight July 4 to challenge any names. July 5 – Patrick Brown is disqualified by the Leadership Election Organizing Committee on the recommendation of the party's chief returning officer after receiving information on alleged violations of the financial provisions of the Canada Elections Act by Brown's campaign. Early July – Ballots started going out to eligible Conservative party members September 6 – Ballots need to be completed and returned by 5 pm EDT September 10 – Ballots counted, Pierre Poilievre was elected the new leader of the Conservative Party with 68% of the points on the first round

Rules and procedures

On March 8, 2022, the party's Leadership Election Organizing Committee released the Rules and Procedures for the 2022 Leadership document. As in the previous two leadership elections, the vote was held under instant-runoff voting in which each electoral district was given 100 points, distributed according to the weight of a candidate's vote in that electoral district. Should no candidate have received more than 50% of the points in a round, the candidate with the lowest amount of points was removed and their points were reallocated to the next highest choice on the ballots that had selected them. Voting was only open to members of the Conservative Party of Canada who had joined the party on or before June 3. Conservative Party membership was open to any Canadian Citizen or Permanent Resident aged 14 or older.

To be considered as a candidate, a member of the party had to apply by April 19 to the Leadership Candidate Nominating Committee with a completed Leadership Contestant Questionnaire, a written endorsement of the party's Code of Conduct policy document, and a $50,000 deposit. Then the member had until April 29 to provide the remaining $150,000 registration fee, a $100,000 security deposit (related to providing financial filings and adherence to the Rules and Procedures document), and 500 signatures of endorsement from party members (which must span at least 30 Electoral Districts in 7 provinces). The document limited expenses to $7,000,000 and prohibited accepting contributions from non-residents and foreign entities. Ballots were mailed to Conservative party members in late July or early August with the results being released on September 10. Media coverage of the 2022 race has described it as "the most expensive-to-enter race in Canadian history".

Campaign

On March 30, 2022, concerns arose that the party's membership lists may have been compromised and used to make fake donation pledges. Melanie Paradis, a former staffer to Erin O'Toole, posted a warning to Twitter about the alleged breach, saying that she was contacted about a $120 donation pledge she never made. Laurence Toth, spokesman for the Charest campaign, said someone had made numerous false donations pledges using a Ukrainian IP address, saying it was an "obvious attempt to create chaos" for the campaign. The party has denied that members' data had been compromised but is investigating the incidents.

In early April, Charest raised the prospect that Poilievre's support for the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa – as expressed in a 10 February podcast during which Poilievre said "I'm proud of the truckers and I stand with them," – disqualified him from being party leader. In response to Charest's comments, Poilievre said Charest was "repeating Liberal lies about truckers" and stated that Charest's consulting work for Huawei "sold out Canada's security" and disqualifies him from becoming prime minister.

On April 12, 2022, Poilievre raised concerns of potential fraud through the use of prepaid credit cards to purchase party memberships. A lawyer for his campaign sent a letter to the leadership election organizing committee demanding that it prohibit the use of prepaid cards to purchase memberships, and saying the campaign would take "appropriate steps to require the party comply" if it did not receive an "acceptable response" in a few days. The use of prepaid credit cards for the leadership election was banned on April 14.

On July 5, 2022, Patrick Brown was disqualified from the race by the party's Leadership Election Organizing Committee. In a statement, Ian Brodie, the chair of the committee, said that the disqualification was recommended by the party's chief returning officer after receiving information on alleged violations of the financial provisions of the Canada Elections Act by Brown's campaign.

Aftermath In July 2023, the Toronto Star later revealed that the volunteer who notified the party of the alleged violations by Brown's campaign, had her legal fees paid by the Poilievre campaign. Brown described the move as "dirty" but still supported the party.