Nearly 270,000 Conservatives eligible to vote in leadership contest

REPLAY: Watch the English-language CPC leadership debate REPLAY: Conservative leadership hopefuls, Leslyn Lewis, Derek Sloan and Erin O’Toole and Peter MacKay in the second Tory debate.

OTTAWA — The national Conservative party says it has 269,469 members eligible to vote in the current leadership race.

About 100,000 of those memberships were purchased since the start of the year, when the contest to replace current leader Andrew Scheer officially began.

The party released the figures today and says it is the largest membership in party history.

Tories say the largest growth in membership has come in Nova Scotia, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador and Alberta.

Conservatives use a points system to elect a leader -- each riding gets 100 points, and how many points a candidate receives depends on his or her share of the vote in the riding.

Voting is currently underway by mail and a new leader is to be announced in late August.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 14, 2020.