all four staffers resigned from his campaign team. After pressure from within the party, he resigned as leader in the early hours of January 25. A day later, fellow MPP, Lisa MacLeod revealed that she heard rumors about similar allegations from former National Hockey League player, Eric Lindros. Dimitri Soudas, former director of communications to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and volunteer for the campaign, suggested the allegations were baseless, saying, “All media organizations were turning over every single stone that they could find, and they couldn’t find anything.” A Globe and Mail article revealed that Brown's staff had expressed similar concern with Brown's past relationships after he became leader. One of these was with Tamara Macgregor, a former staffer within Brown's office and daughter of Karma Macgregor, then former party candidate to Ottawa West—Nepean. The day after he resigned, Brown was succeeded on an interim basis by Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli. Fedeli, who was unanimously elected by caucus, asked Brown to take a leave of absence from Queen's Park while he defended himself against the allegations. In addition, Fedeli announced that he would not sign Brown's nomination papers if he attempted to run in a Barrie riding at the June 7 provincial election. Brown had intended on running in Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte in that election, but Fedeli's announcement would mean that he would have to run as an independent. In one incident, there was an allegation that Brown exposed himself to a teenager and asked her to engage in oral sex after plying her with alcohol. The accuser alleged that she was an 18-year-old high school student when the oral sex incident occurred; but on February 13, three weeks after the first public report, she amended her claim to say she was a year older than she had previously maintained, and was therefore over the legal drinking age. Corrections were subsequently made on the initial news articles. In the other incident, Brown was alleged to have kissed, without consent, a female aide in his employ while in his bedroom. Brown later took a lie detector test and claimed that he felt his name was cleared. No charges were laid as a result of either alleged incident and on April 23, 2018, he sued CTV for $8 million in damages. He then entered the Ontario PC leadership race less than one or two hours before the deadline. In March 2022, Brown and CTV