Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown says he won't run for the federal Conservatives if current frontrunner Pierre Poilievre wins the September leadership election..Brown said while he believes he can win the leadership race, he would consider running under the party's banner if former Quebec premier Jean Charest or MP Leslyn Lewis wins.."I could run under them, absolutely. They have the capacity to win the next general election," Brown said of Charest and Lewis during an interview on Power & Politics.."With Pierre Poilievre, I just don't believe he could win seats in the GTA. I think his message is too divisive. So for me, following the federal route with Pierre wouldn't make much sense.".Brown didn't expand on why he sees Poilievre as undermining the Conservative vote in the Toronto area. The mayor previously cited Poilievre's past support for a niqab ban at citizenship ceremonies and a "barbaric cultural practices" tip line as an election liability..Brown also said Thursday he doesn't trust some of the membership figures the Poilievre campaign has released..Poilievre's team said last weekend they sold more than 310,000 new memberships, while the Conservative party said there are around 600,000 members eligible to vote in the leadership election..Since there were already 140,000 Conservative members before the race started, and Brown said he has sold around 150,000 memberships, he claimed that would mean Charest, Lewis, and the other candidates would have sold barely any.."I think the other campaigns ran robust campaigns so, clearly, there's a disconnect with the claims the Poilievre campaign has made," Brown said, adding all parties should release a membership list to all the campaigns..Brown said if Poilievre wins, he would consider staying in his current job as mayor of Brampton, a city of about 600,000, west of Toronto.
