An inside look at Patrick Brown’s pitch for selling Conservative party memberships

"My path to victory is not winning the party membership," he says. "My path to victory is bringing new people in and having a decent level of support within the party."

OTTAWA — An apology to the Tamil community, improving cricket infrastructure, and putting a visa office in Kathmandu are just some of the promises Patrick Brown has made in hopes of becoming the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

But a search for these pledges on the campaign website, and social media accounts of the Brampton, Ont., mayor come up empty.

They appear only to exist in pitches he delivered to leaders and members of the country’s Tamil and Nepalese community, whom he’s courting, among other immigrant and racialized Canadians, to buy party memberships as the clock ticks down to the June 3 deadline.

And while Brown’s main rival, Pierre Poilievre, is drawing crowds by the thousands, the former MP and leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives has been criss-crossing the country, making his case to rooms of sometimes only as many as 20.

A glimpse into his strategy can be found in a series of videos and clips shared on Facebook by those who attended such events, including a meeting Brown had with Muslim community members in British Columbia, 17 minutes of which was livestreamed April 1.

“In the existing Conservative membership Pierre is more popular. The existing Conservative membership wants someone who is more hard- right,” says Brown, seated on a couch as others appeared in nearby chairs listening to him answer their questions.

“My path to victory is not winning the party membership,” he says. “My path to victory is bringing new people in and having a decent level of support within the party.”

He says they have a large campaign in the Sikh, Muslim, Tamil and Chinese communities “that have all felt mistreated by the party”