Controversial PC sex-ed letter distributed by Patrick Brown's chief of staff

Patrick Brown's chief of staff distributed acontroversial letter on sex education a day before the Progressive Conservativeleader said he first heard of it, The Canadian Presshas learned.

The letter that bore Brown's electronic signature said that ifhis party formed government, it would "scrap" the Liberals' updated sex-edcurriculum. Days later, Brown wrote an op-eddisavowing the letter, saying that the local Tory campaign in theScarborough-Rouge River byelection "went too far."

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Brown was up north for most of that week and said he only saw theletter after it went out last Fridaythe day it was reported in themediaand was livid because it didn't reflect his views.

The Canadian Press has obtained an email that Brown's chief ofstaff, Nicolas Pappalardo, sent last Thursday to Queenie Yu,aformer PC party worker who ran as an independent in the byelection,on a platform of opposing the new sex-ed curriculum.

"As a courtesy, please find attached an open letter to parentsfrom the Leader of the PC Party of Ontario," Pappalardo wrote inthe email, dated Aug. 25. "It will be distributed inthe riding this weekend."

Brown and Pappalardo did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Yu attached the letter to a news release she sent out Friday, congratulating Brown on his position. The day after the byelectionthat was won by Progressive Conservative Raymond Cho, Yu providedPappalardo's email to The Canadian Press.

"If I, the independent candidate who was supposedly taking votesaway from Cho, received the letter early Thursday afternoon from thePC leader's office, it would have been unlikely that the leaderhimself did not know about it until midday on Friday," Yu wrote inan email.

The sex-ed controversy dominated the last week of the byelection campaign in a ridingwhere the curriculum has not been wellreceived. A promise to scrap it would have been popular, Brown hasacknowledged.

Brown downplayed the letter's significance Thursday night afterthe byelection win, saying it "barely" got distributed in theriding. He refused to say who wrote it, but said after thebyelection he would "make sure that we have a better organizationgoing forward."