Ontario PCs work to replace Brown

Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives continued to grapple with a sexual misconduct scandal Monday as party brass began to lay out the groundwork for a leadership contest to be held just months before the June provincial election.

In the span of five days, the party saw both its leader, Patrick Brown, and president, Rick Dykstra, step down amid sexual misconduct allegations.

Brown’s resignations on Wednesday left the party, which had been leading in the polls, scrambling to find a new leader in time for the election.

A decision by caucus to have interim leader Vic Fedeli take the Tories through the spring vote was later overturned by the party’s executive, which voted in favour of a leadership race.

Fedeli, a former finance critic, was the only candidate to officially enter the race until Monday afternoon, when a controversial political figure threw his hat in the ring.

Doug Ford, former Toronto city councillor and brother to the city’s late former mayor Rob Ford, announced he was entering the race to save the party from what he called political “elites.”

“The elites of this party, the ones who shut out the grassroots, do not want me in this race,” he told reporters at his family’s home in west Toronto. “I’m here to give a voice ... to the hardworking taxpayers of this province, people who have been ignored for far too long.”

A party committee is hammering down the rules and the date of a leadership contest to later be approved by the party executive.

“We’re looking forward to coming back to them with those rules that will set out what a leadership process could look like to allow us to elect a new leader that the party would be proud to take to Ontarians,” said committee chairman Hartley Lefton.