O'Toole says he considered expelling a Conservative senator over foreign influence concerns

Former Conservative leader Erin O'Toole said Wednesday he contemplated expelling a Conservative senator from his party's caucus over concerns that the senator was involved in foreign influence.

Testifying in Ottawa before the inquiry into foreign interference, O'Toole said one of his MPs was told by a local mayor that a Conservative senator was actively working on behalf of a Chinese government-owned company.

"There was a member of our upper chamber caucus that an MP brought to me that he had been directly or indirectly promoting or lobbying an interest of a Chinese state-owned enterprise in a riding in Ontario," O'Toole told the inquiry.