By Canadian Press

Conservatives didn’t properly investigate allegations against Dykstra: report

May 3, 2019 | 8:39 AM

OTTAWA — The Conservative Party of Canada is adding police checks to its candidate vetting policies

The party hired lawyer Carol Nielsen more than a year ago to probe how Rick Dykstra was allowed to continue on as a candidate in the 2015 election after the party learned he was accused of assaulting a woman who worked for another MP.

Dykstra denies doing anything wrong and lost his Ontario seat in the election before the allegations were made public.

Nielsen’s report says party officials failed to make the necessary inquiries about the allegations, a failure she blames on the lack of any actual protocol for handling such complaints.

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The party relied on Dykstra’s word that the police had investigated and decided not to lay charges and Nielsen says one of the failures was that party officials never bothered to check with the police themselves.

Police have said they dropped the investigation because the complainant did not want to proceed.

The Canadian Press