A conservative deputy of New Brunswick who runs for re -election this year is losing some of his followers after a fight with former employees and resignations of the local organization of the party.
Jake Stewart, the deputy of Lake Miramichi-Grand, recently made a lawyer of the House of the Commons send a cease and withdrawal letter to Shawn Morrison, a conservative for a long time that he used to work in his office.
The letter, dated January 30 and obtained by CBC News, was sent to Morrison after an exchange of burning social media publications and, sometimes, between him and Stewart.
That occurred a few days after the financial agent of the Conservative Association of Riding in Lake Grand Miramichi resigned in an email to the members of the Board of the Association.
The conservative deputy of Miramichi-Grand Lake will not explain the closure of the office, the resignations of the personnel, the cessation and withdrawal letter.
“My decision comes from a deep distrust of the current Board and staff within the MP Stewart office,” Denver Brennan wrote in an email on January 24 obtained by CBC News.
He also said that the atmosphere in the Stewart office was “toxic and manipulative” and that eight other people had left jobs with the MP for three years, although one of them, Aiden Ingersoll, appeared in a photo of the social networks of the 11 of February with Stewart.
Stewart, first -term conservative deputy and former provincial cabinet minister in the Blaine Higgs government, has been nominated as a candidate for the party for federal elections that this spring is expected.
He has not responded to text messages or telephone calls or an email to his office requesting an interview.
In a Facebook publication in January responding to Morrison, the MP seemed to challenge him to a physical confrontation.
“My direction has not changed,” Stewart wrote, challenging him to “bring him” and use blasphemy to describe morrision.
Morrison and Brennan would not do interviews with CBC News.
Kelly Wilson, president of the Board of the Conservative Association of Riding, did not respond to requests for comments.
Meanwhile, Stewart’s office on the King George highway in Miramichi was closed for several weeks after Christmas holidays, with a sign in the window citing “security reasons.”
Stewart posted two photos in his social media accounts on February 11 showing him greeting the voters in the office, and when CBC News photographed the office the next day, the sign left.
But Brunswick News reported that the sign returned later in the day.
When CBC News visited the office again on February 20, there was no such signal in the window, but the door was closed and nobody responded to repeated rings in a bell.
Stewart participated in a community event in Miramichi the same day.
Aleksandra Pisarek, a lawyer from the office of the Office of the Chamber of the Commons, signed the Morrison’s cessation and withdrawal letter.
He says that Morrison has been involved in an “unpleasant, malicious and vindictive behavior,” including unpleasant contact with Stewart staff and his spouse.
He asks that “cease and desist immediately” and warns him that if he continues, “all possible legal resources will be considered.”
Two spokesmen of the conservative leader Pierre Poilievre did not respond to a request for comments. Kevin Price, the New Brunswick representative in the National Council of the party, also did not answer.
Stewart was first chosen for the New Brunswick legislature in 2010 and was re -elected in 2014, 2018 and 2020.
He was running for the provincial leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in 2016, placing the fifth place in the first voting round.
Prime Minister Blaine Higgs appointed the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs Stewart when the PCs formed a minority government in 2018, but withdrew it from the cabinet after winning a majority in 2020.
Stewart resigned as a MLA the following year to run at the federal level and was chosen MP for Lake Miramichi-Grand in the September 2021 elections.
He was one of the first parliamentarians to support Poilievre for the leader of the Federal Conservative Party after the parliamentarians expelled Erin O’Toole from the position in early 2022.
