Patrick Brown’s 23-year-old girlfriend says the ousted former Progressive Conservative leader “is one of the most respectful, decent and caring individuals I have ever met.”“You can ask any questions you want but I have no interest in participating in an attack on a good man,” Genevieve Gualtieri said in a text message to the Star.“It is wrong how the media has treated him.” Known to friends as “GG,” Gualtieri worked as an intern in Brown’s office on Parliament Hill when he was a Conservative MP before moving to Queen’s Park in May 2015 — about two weeks after Brown became Progressive Conservative leader.She was paid $500 a week as an intern, arriving when she was 21, sources say, and Gualtieri has accompanied Brown on several overseas trips while he was leader, including to India.Friends said they have been an on-again-off-again couple for several years and that she rallied to his side after CTV’s Jan. 24 report alleging sexual impropriety against Brown by two women when they were teenagers and he was a Tory MP.Brown, who turns 40 in May, has said the allegations are false, and has been publicly fighting back in a bid to clear his name. CTV stands by its story — as do both women, even though one has since acknowledged that she initially had some details wrong regarding her drunken encounter with a sober Brown. Last Friday, the same day he was turfed from the Tory caucus, Brown announced he was running again for his old job as PC leader. He has made a number of public appearances since and Gualtieri was campaigning at his side in Orillia on the Family Day long weekend.Tory insiders say she knows the region well. During the Simcoe North byelection won by Brown in September 2015, friends described her as an enthusiastic campaign worker. “I have nothing but good things to say,” Gualtieri, who works at the SickKids Foundation, told the Star in a brief telephone interview ...
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