Embattled Liberals have never had more ammunition
FORD RULES ONTARIO TORIES AFTER CHAOTIC LEADERSHIP VOTE
Barely a month ago, businessman Doug Ford was planning to run for mayor of Toronto, the post that late brother Rob had earlier turned into a soap opera of controversy. But on Sunday, Ford began his first full day as chief of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative party, having narrowly triumphed Saturday in a chaotic PC leadership race, municipal politics left far behind.
His populist, plain-talking style — full of attacks on various “elites” — won out over more establishment Tory candidates, including the wife of a former federal finance minister and the daughter of a prime minister.
Fittingly for an election marked by bitter recrimination and surprise twists, however, chief rival Christine Elliott initially refused to concede. She suggested a mix-up in allocating ballots to specific ridings — as required by the party’s geographically weighted electoral-vote system — may have altered the outcome.
Sunday evening, Elliott issued a statement saying that she was “confident in the results. I extend my congratulations to Doug Ford on a hard-fought campaign.”
The ballot issue delayed announcement of the results Saturday by seven hours, well after party members were shooed out of a hotel conference room in the Toronto suburb of Markham.
Ford swatted away the challenge Sunday as he began unofficially campaigning for the June 7 election, while party officials and luminaries suggested all Tories should honour his win.
“I’m worried about (Liberal Premier) Kathleen Wynne, not Christine right now,” he told the CP24 TV station at Toronto’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. “We’re going to defeat Kathleen Wynne and bring prosperity back to this great province.”
Mike Harris, the last Conservative leader to win an election in Ontario and a two-term premier, urged Elliott and others to fall behind Ford.
“The number one goal for the good of Ontario is do whatever we can to get rid of the Kathleen Wynne Liberals,” he said. “To do that we must be united. Christine Elliott can play an important part by making the selection of Doug Ford unanimous.”
Ford, who was a city councillor during brother Rob’s tumultuous tenure as Toronto mayor from 2010 to 2014, was declared winner of the online election after the third ballot. He had secured just under 51 per cent of the electoral points allocated to each riding.
Elliott finished a close second, the former Tory legislature member’s third straight defeat in three attempts at the party leadership.
Her late husband Jim Flaherty, who was finance minister under former prime minister Stephen Harper, had himself run twice for leader, also losing.
Elliott’s campaign released a statement just after midnight, claiming “serious irregularities” in the voting process that included thousands of members’ votes being assigned to incorrect ridings.
”Our scrutineers identified entire towns voting in the wrong riding,” the statement said. “In a race this close, largely determined by geography, someone needs to stand up for these members.” The campaign vowed “to investigate the extent of this discrepancy,” and met with lawyers Sunday.
It was a one-member, one-vote election, but each constituency was assigned just 100 electoral points (and less in those with fewer than 100 members). The candidates’ portion of the popular vote in each constituency determined how many points they would pick up.
The statement said Elliott had won the popular vote, and the majority of ridings, and was just 150 electoral votes — out of over 12,000 — behind Ford.
The party’s leadership organizing committee tried Sunday to tamp down any doubt about who had won. It emphasized in a statement the results were deemed conclusive after an “exhaustive review” of whether certain votes were assigned to the appropriate riding.
“These results are definitive and provide a clear mandate to Doug Ford,” said Hartley Lefton, the committee’s chair.
A source who had been involved in the wrangling Saturday said challenges to the riding allocations of ballots had actually been resolved before the votes were even counted. A spokeswoman for Elliott’s campaign said the team did raise issues earlier, but assumed the problems would be fixed.
Assuming it stands, Ford’s win likely signals a move to the right for the Ontario Tories. He reached out to fiscal and social conservatives during the campaign, promising to rewrite a controversial sex-education curriculum, appearing open to restrictions on abortion for underage girls and vowing to cut government costs.
Ford, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2014 after a cancer diagnosis forced his brother to drop out, also vowed to abandon former leader Patrick Brown’s promise to bring in a tax on carbon emissions, and to fight any attempt by the federal government to impose one on the province. Brown had tried to craft a moderate, just right-of-centre platform.
Elliott actually finished slightly ahead of Ford on the first ballot. Tanya Granic Allen, a self-described advocate for social conservatives, won 1,882 of the 12,267 available electoral points, which put her in last place and knocked her off the next ballot. But it was a stronger showing than expected, and most of her support was thought to go to Ford in later rounds. She was just behind lawyer Caroline Mulroney, daughter of former prime minister Brian Mulroney, who had 2,107 electoral points.
The unexpected, rushed leadership contest began when former leader Patrick Brown resigned in late January amid sexual misconduct allegations, was rocked by his brief foray into the race, and ended with a court challenge of the voting process.