It’s official: Tories drop Guergis as riding candidate

The Conservative Party’s National Council has bounced Helena Guergis as the nominated candidate for Simcoe-Grey, CTV News has learned.

She was informed of the decision Wednesday afternoon, as was her riding association, CTV Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife reported.

Sources told CTV News that Guergis was removed as a candidate because Conservatives are concerned an election could be called at any moment, and they need to have nominated candidates in all 308 ridings.

You know, that explanation would be a lot more believable if they weren’t still over 100 candidates short of a full 308-riding slate.

I understand why they booted Guergis from Cabinet. And I can see the argument that she be removed from caucus while the RCMP investigates her. But to strip her nomination before seeing what the RCMP probe unearths?

Something just doesn’t add up, and I suspect there may be more to this story than we’ve heard so far (and lord knows we’ve heard a lot so far).