Ontario PC leadership race looking like a Maple Leafs rebuild

Ontario's Conservative Party is like the Toronto Maple Leafs of provincial politics: trying to rebuild yet again.

But with only a few weeks left in a leadership contest that few people outside the party have paid any attention to, the question is: who will lead the party, and in which direction? 

Like the Leafs, the Tories have tried a truculent period, with right-wing leaders such as Frank Miller, Mike Harris and Tim Hudak, who stepped down after not one but two unsuccessful tries at body checking the Liberals from the premier's office.

And they've tried playing their left-wingers for voters by electing Larry Grossman and more recently John Tory (now the mayor of Toronto) as party leaders.

Like their hockey equivalent, the Tories have had years of success and years in the political wilderness.

Ontario Tories have not tasted election night victory since Harris in 1999 when the one-time golf pro won his second majority government before stepping down in 2003, paving the way for Ernie Eves, who could play both left and right wing.

The field is down to 2 candidates

Now the Conservatives are at another crossroads with just two choices: Barrie MP Patrick Brown and MPP Christine Elliott.

And the compare-and-contrast couldn't be clearer for Tories who will cast their ballots on May 3 and May 7 with the winner announced two days later in Toronto.

Elliott is the Progressive Conservative veteran. At 60 years old, she has been a MPP since 2006, ran for the leadership in 2009 and is the widow of former federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. If elected, she will become the first woman to lead the party.

But she is also someone Brown and his followers have labelled as part of the old guard of the PC party, the establishment candidate.

Brown, the social Conservative, is 36. He is single and a lawyer by profession. He was first elected a Barrie city councillor at age 22 and by 2006 was an elected federal MP. But he's always been on the backbench — never appointed a parliamentary secretary and never considered, reportedly, for elevation to cabinet.

But, he's tapped into something in this provincial leadership race that has clearly made him a contender and no longer a laughing stock, challenging Elliott who for a long time seemed to have a lock on being leader.

Lacking the dollars and delegates to continue, last week MPP Monte McNaughton pulled out of the race and threw his support behind Brown. Elliott saw her opening to lambaste both men, though the message was directed squarely at Brown.

In a news release Elliott was quoted as saying of Brown that he's an "untested candidate with nothing more to offer than a life lived as a career politician. Worse yet, over the course of his time spent in office he has done little of significance and, has no substantive record."

The release didn't stop there, with references to "Monte's and Patrick's ideological rejection of a modern and inclusive Ontario." 

Views, Elliott argues, that will see the party defeated again in the next provincial election.

But Brown is playing demographics. He's trying to tap into the growing South Asian communities around Toronto for votes, and in some areas he's succeeding. If that holds up and Brown wins the leadership, it's the kind of support that might allow the Tories to start winning seats again in the vote-rich Greater Toronto Area.

Even those who see Brown as the answer to the party's woes admit their sense is that delegates are still torn between going with the known in Elliott or the promise of the unknown in Brown.

The Liberals and the NDP have been keeping quiet about the PC race. But, make no mistake, they're keeping a close eye on what's going on.

And both are privately anxious to see Brown win because they, like Elliott, believe he's out of touch with a modern Ontario. The opposition hopes Brown will follow in a long line of PC leaders who, like the Leafs, promised to rebuild for success only to fail one more time.