Kelowna-Lake Country Conservative MP Tracy Gray has declared her support of party leadership candidate Erin O’Toole.

She joins Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo MP Cathy McLeod, who declared she was backing O’Toole on Feb. 28.

Part of Gray’s support is payback for O’Toole helping her take back the Kelowna-Lake Country riding from Liberal Stephen Fuhr in last fall’s federal election.

“He is also the only leadership candidate that came to the Okanagan and surrounding region,” Gray wrote in a Facebook post May 13. “Erin took the time last summer to come here to Kelowna-Lake Country and help me with my campaign. He gave me good advice, that I believe helped me win my election.”

She wrote that she supports O’Toole because he “deeply cares about our country, and our region,” that he has a common sense approach and he leads by example.

She does not make any reference to policy positions in the post.

Central Okanagan-Similkameen-Nicola Conservative MP Dan Albas told iNFOnews.ca in March that it was too early to declare who he was supporting in the race, even though he jumped in early as co-chair of Maxime Bernier’s leadership campaign in 2016.

Albas did not return a call for comment from iNFOnews.ca by publication time today.

Friday, May 15 is the deadline to become a member of the party in order to vote for the leader.

The leadership campaign was put on hold on March 26 because of the COVID-19 pandemic but resumed April 29. Voting will be done by mail. Ballots have to be received by Aug. 21.

A recent poll by Mainstreet Research showed Peter MacKay leading with support from 40 per cent of decided voters. O’Toole followed with 34 per cent. Leslyn Lewis had nine per cent of the support, Derek Sloan had five per cent and about 13 per cent were undecided.

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