Tories turf son of MP as Fraser Valley candidate
No family dynasty as Liv Grewal, 29, is out
The son of a current Tory MP and a former Tory MP has been turfed as a Conservative candidate in the Fraser Valley.
Liv Grewal, who in May won the Tory nomination in the new Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon riding, was given the news Monday night.
Grewal’s mother is Fleetwood-Port Kells MP Nina Grewal, who didn’t return calls or emails Wednesday. His father is former Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal, who was banned from running for the party last fall for unspecified reasons. Gurmant Grewal is out of the country.
Gurmant and Nina were the first husband and wife duo elected to the House of Commons. Any hopes of a political dynasty with son Liv, 29, serving beside his mother were dashed.
Conservative party communications director Cory Hann confirmed to The Sun that Liv Grewal has been removed as a candidate.
“I can confirm that Liv Grewal is no longer the Conservative party candidate,” Hann said Wednesday from Ottawa.
Asked why, he said: “I can say the party is running fair and open nominations. Any accusation of breaking rules — we investigate them and review them and that’s as much as I’ll say on that matter.”
Liv Grewal issued a news release late Wednesday after repeated attempts by The Sun to interview him.
He claimed he was “withdrawing,” despite reports that he was removed after an internal review into allegations his camp paid for people’s membership.
“100% of all membership forms were submitted by personal cheques or credit cards and all forms were duly signed by the members agreeing to the terms and conditions of the membership,” Grewal said in his release.
“I’m disappointed with this decision by the Party. Sadly, it is the result of an unfair political process.”
But The Sun has learned that complaints were made about Liv Grewal’s campaign — including allegations of influencing people into not co-operating with the review.
“The party launched an independent review and went out to the riding and did some interviews with people just to get some background on what it was that happened,” a Conservative source said.
“What the independent review found is basically that these concerns on how Liv Grewal’s campaign conducted itself were found to be true, founded, that the Liv Grewal campaign had purchased memberships for others which is against the rules and can be against Elections Canada rules as well.”
The review also found there were “tactics ... to try to keep things quiet,” the source said.
The party decided to remove Grewal after looking at the evidence collected in the review.
Grewal, an Abbotsford resident, won the nomination with 54 per cent of 1,846 ballots cast. He has been active in politics since his teenage years.
An online biography says Grewal first worked on his dad’s campaign in 1997, volunteered in 2000 with Preston Manning’s campaign to head the Canadian Alliance party (the Reform party successor), then on Stephen Harper’s campaign two years later to lead the Canadian Alliance.
Brad Vis, who came in second to Grewal in the Conservative nomination race, declined to comment Wednesday and referred a call to party headquarters.