ERIN O’Toole, Conservative Party Leader, on Monday said in a statement that former party leadership candidate Derek Sloan’s “acceptance of a donation from a well-known white supremacist is far worse than a gross error of judgment or failure of due diligence.”

O’Toole added: “In accordance with the Reform Act, I have initiated the process to remove Mr. Sloan from the Conservative Party of Canada caucus. I expect this to 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.”

O’Toole asserted: “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.”

Sloan, the MP for Hastings-Lennox and Addington, Ontario, however, tweeted: “Today, at approximately 4 p.m. eastern time, I became aware of a Press Progress article that brought to light that Paul Fromm, a person with known connections to racist groups, donated $131 to my campaign. My campaign raised well over $1,300,000 and had over 13,000 separate donations. 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.”

Sloan added: “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. Upon learning about what happened, I immediately contacted the Executive Director of the Conservative Party, Janet Dorey, and requested this donation be returned.”

Sloan later added: “Guess who else took a donation from “Frederick P Fromm”? After conducting my own investigation, I realized @CPC_HQ took a 10% cut ($13.10) from the same donation I am now possibly being expelled from caucus over. It looks like they didn’t know who this individual was either?”

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