PC LEADER HOPEFULS INTENSIFY ATTACKS

With just four days before Ontario Conservatives vote for their next leader, the last two candidates in the race have picked a lane.

In the final debate between Christine Elliott and Patrick Brown to be broadcast Friday night, Elliott took the progressive track while Brown focused on his conservative credentials.

Elliott said her opponent would fail to put the “progressive” in the Ontario PC party; while Brown said Elliott wants to turn the party into “Liberal light.”

She also attacked Brown’s ties to social conservatives, especially since MPP Monte McNaughton dropped out of the race to back him. She said after the debate she is a “true progressive conservative,” and that it’s been very successful for much of the party’s history, and they need to “go back to those roots” to win.

“I don’t think we would win if we went out with that kind of (socially conservative) message,” Elliott said. The PC party has been shut out of all Toronto ridings in general elections since the Liberals took office in 2003.

Brown countered that Elliott is the establishment candidate, and though she may have the majority of MPPs’ support, he’s more in tune with the base.

“I realize the establishment of the party is not supporting my candidacy … (but) the grassroots want their party back,” he said.

Ontario’s new sexual education curriculum — which has stirred controversy in social conservative circles — also became a point of contention.

Elliott challenged Brown’s stance on the issue, pointing out he spoke at a protest outside the legislature (she was scheduled to speak but pulled out).

“I would have voted against” the curriculum, Brown said. After the debate, Elliott wouldn’t say clearly which way she would have voted but that the curriculum needed to be more “age appropriate.”

Elliott offered hard policy to answers on taxation — she would lower the corporate tax rate to 10 per cent from 11.5 per cent — and called the privatization of Hydro One the same as “selling the house but keeping the mortgage.”

She said she would launch a policy consultation to draft a coherent energy plan for Ontario ahead of the next election.

Brown has not launched a platform, saying the party has for too long been run from the top down and he would consult with membership once he became leader. He does have three overarching themes: lower energy costs, better transportation networks and reducing red tape.

The debate airs Friday night on TVO’s The Agenda. at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.

PC party members will vote in their ridings on Sunday and next Thursday. The results will be announced May 9 at a Toronto-area convention centre.

The grassroots want their party back