Election woes, labour foes among top issues at Tory leadership debate
Ontario’s battered Progressive Conservatives won’t win the next election by being a “second Liberal party,” leadership candidate Monte McNaughton says in a shot at his middle-of-the-road rivals.
It was one of a few jabs taken during Monday night’s leadership debate at a convention centre in London as the party prepares to pick a replacement for ousted chief Tim Hudak on May 9.
“When Liberals are forced to pick between the real Liberal party and a ‘Liberal light’ imitation, voters have and always will chose the real thing and we never win,” said McNaughton, MPP for the nearby riding of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex.
McNaughton, who has the backing of former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, said he’s the “only candidate” of the five contenders who will stand up to Premier Kathleen Wynne’s updated sex education curriculum.
Wynne said Monday that pupils in Grade 1 should start learning how to read facial expressions and emotions to help them understand the concept of consent in sexual relations.
The two-hour debate featured more hand-wringing about the party’s devastating June 12 election loss, with Hudak facing more blame for a controversial promise to cut 100,000 public sector jobs that helped power Wynne to a majority.
That pledge, announced as a surprise by Hudak just a week into the campaign, prompted a question from one of 300 party faithful in the audience on how the Conservatives could repair their relationship with the union movement.
“We went to war with labour . . . we need to stop going to war with the unions,” acknowledged Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli (Nipissing), who said he has met with three union leaders since the disastrous election.
That gave MPP Lisa MacLeod (Nepean-Carleton) an opening.
“Anybody that tells you that we are going to fix our labour issues because we’re having a cup of coffee with somebody is naive or they think you are,” she said.
MPP Christine Elliott (Whitby-Oshawa) said the party needs to find “common ground” with organized labour to “mitigate the extent to which unions will come after us in the next election.”
Barrie MP Patrick Brown, the only candidate without a seat in the legislature, said the candidates with seats at Queen’s Park were part of the last election team and therefore part of the problem in reaching voters.
In his closing remarks, he accused Elliott — who was the first candidate in the race days after Hudak quit last June — of “standing shoulder to shoulder” with the former leader during the campaign.
Elliott retorted she had no advance noticed of the ill-fated plan to cut 100,000 jobs. Amid the tension, she and Brown were the only two candidates who did not shake hands before leaving the debate stage.
So far in the race, candidates have been shy about offending each other or their supporters because broad support from delegates is crucial in the vote, which will be conducted by preferential ballot.
Candidates have just over a month left to sign up supporters.
Anyone who has purchased a $10 Conservative membership by Feb. 28 will be able to vote on May 3 or May 7, with the winner being announced at a convention in Toronto two days later.
The Conservatives have lost the last four elections to the Liberals despite a slew of scandals including two cancelled gas plants, questionable business practices at the ORNGE air ambulance service, and reckless spending at eHealth Ontario.
