The Former President of the UCP Highwood Constituency Association says she was sexually harassed by another member of her board.

Laurie Rennich says when she complained about that, and what she calls irregularities in the lead up to October's nomination vote, she was removed as President.

"I was removed initially on a temporary suspension because I breached my confidentiality agreement as part of the Local Constituency Nomination Committee. And as part of the my complaint about the nomination contest I also raised issues with regard to a person on my board who made sexual harassment comments to myself."

In response to Rennich's complaint about the harassment, United Conservative Party Officials informed her that "We expect these interpersonal matters to be resolved quickly and completely, so that further ongoing damage to the party itself is avoided."

The response goes on to say the UCP has a harassment policy, "And your complaints will be reviewed under that policy, however that does not alter our above decision."

We contacted the UCP party for comment on these issues and were issued this response via email:

In response to your request regarding allegations in the Highwood Constituency, please find below a statement attributable to Erika Barootes, President of the United Conservative Party:

“In October 2018, the United Conservative Party received a formal complaint regarding the personal conduct of one of the Highwood constituency association’s volunteers on the local candidate nomination committee. The Party immediately took steps to review the complaint including discussions with both the complainant and the volunteer in question and after reviewing the situation, it was determined that there was no breach of the code of conduct that governs constituency association volunteers.

“Subsequent to this initial complaint, another individual came forward with an allegation regarding the conduct of the volunteer. This complaint was also reviewed by the Party and again, no breach of the code of conduct was found.

“While we will not disclose any further information that could be used to identify the complainants, we can confirm that neither of the allegations involved the sitting MLA or the nominated candidate in Highwood.

“The United Conservative Party is a volunteer based organization and our 87 constituency associations could not function without the passion and effort of thousands of our grassroots members. While disputes between engaged and passionate members and volunteers are inevitable, the Party takes allegations of bullying, harassment, and inappropriate behaviour seriously, and thoroughly reviews such complaints when they arise.”