The Canadian Press
TORONTO–The newly-appointed interim leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives says he won’t make a bid for permanent leadership of the party.
Vic Fedeli says he’s focusing on dealing with in-fighting and fixing issues within the party ahead of the upcoming provincial election.
Fedeli said he plans to “root out the rot” from the party so that its candidates can enter the campaign with confidence.
The party has been in turmoil since last week when leader Patrick Brown resigned in the face of sexual misconduct allegations reported by CTV News, which he vehemently denies.
The allegations have not been independently verified by The Canadian Press.
The party’s executive announced Friday that there would be a leadership race before the spring election–overruling the caucus’s recommendation to have Fedeli stay at the helm.
Fedeli initially declared his intention to run in the leadership contest before reversing course today.
His announcement comes amid speculation over potential leadership candidates.
Currently, only one–Toronto politician Doug Ford, brother of the city’s late former mayor Rob Ford–is in the running.
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 hard-working 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.
Lefton said the Tories will stick to the one-member, one-vote rule, which would open the voting up to the party’s 200,000 members.
It’s not yet clear when the convention will be held but a permanent party leader will be in place by the end of March, Lefton pledged.
“The [party] executive set an outside date of March 24 but realistically it could be any time between now and then,” he noted.
Former Postmedia executive Rod Phillips, a PC candidate in the riding of Ajax., Ont., who is considering entering the race, said it’s important that all party members have a say in who leads them in the next election.
Phillips and Caroline Mulroney, another potential leadership candidate, had opposed the caucus proposal to have Fedeli become permanent leader.
“To present a strong, unified, Ontario PC party that can win against [Premier] Kathleen Wynne, the leader who takes us through the election must have a clear mandate from all members of the Ontario PC Party,” Phillips said in a statement on Friday.
“Our party is made up of some 200,000 members across our province,” he stressed.
“This isn’t without its challenges, given the timelines, but it is the right thing to do.”
Meanwhile, the Progressive Conservatives have shuffled their critic portfolio, with Fedeli saying today he has appointed three of the party’s caucus members to new critic roles.
Lisa MacLeod will take over from Fedeli as the party’s finance critic.
Lorne Coe will become the party’s education critic, a role previously held by Brown, while Lisa Thompson will become the party’s caucus chair.
