How Patrick Brown could be Ontario’s next premier
The Conservative MP from Barrie is the best salesperson Ontario’s PCs have ever seen.

thestar.com
April 29, 2015
Martin Regg Cohn

Never mind the question, “Who is Patrick Brown?”

A better question: “Why Patrick Brown?”

How did an unknown, unseasoned MP from Barrie become the frontrunner to take over the opposition PCs next month, positioning him to be premier?

Brown may not be a household name yet, but here’s how nearly 80,000 Progressive Conservatives would probably answer both questions: He is the best salesperson the party has ever seen.

His campaign has out-organized, outhustled and utterly humiliated more established candidates in the leadership race, most of whom dropped out. After 10 months, only deputy leader Christine Elliott will still be standing - but trailing - in a debate airing Friday night on TVO’sThe Agenda.

Brown is the Energizer Bunny, hopping from one remote riding to another on a chartered plane, raising money from high rollers, hiring the best organizers and tweeting tirelessly. Taking a page from the federal Conservatives, he has visited almost every temple, mosque and church basement in Ontario - going where no provincial PCs have gone before.

By signing up more than 40,000 members at $10 each, he vastly outsold all rivals. Numbers will matter when the ballots are counted at a May 9 convention, and by that measure alone Brown deserves to win.

But how does he measure up in other ways?

If Brown has sold the most memberships, he has won far fewer endorsements than Elliott from MPPs and MPs who know them. For a man who aspires to lead Canada’s biggest province, his CV seems awfully thin.

At 36, he has spent his entire adult life in politics, but makes no apologies: “I think I’ve got a unique background, you know, my academic training, obviously - I am a lawyer by training and practiced briefly.”

Brown was a PC Youth leader in his teens and served two terms on Barrie council in his twenties. He rode the Stephen Harper wave to Ottawa as an MP, but the Prime Minister never saw fit to put him in cabinet - nor offer the customary consolation prize of parliamentary secretary.

Despite his obscurity in Ottawa, Brown trumpets his imaginary influence at the highest levels. His website boasts, “Patrick has accompanied and provided strategic advice to Prime Minister Harper on official visits to Japan, Thailand, South Korea and India.” Many backbenchers are invited by the PM to tag along as a loyalty perk, but few claim such strategic clout.

Brown keeps calling himself chair of the so-called “GTA Caucus” of Conservative MPs - as a way to stress his ties to the vote-rich 416 and 905. In fact, the party described him as “Chair for the Central Ontario Caucus” in 2011, because it includes MPs from many non-GTA ridings - including Barrie - yet Brown still tweets and retweets “GTA Caucus.” Hmmm.

That forgivable fib aside, what about the big stuff? Brown insists he isn’t a social conservative, yet he merits a top rating from the Campaign Life Coalition - and they’re right: He voted to revisit the legalization of gay marriage in 2006 (Too late - Ontarians voted for a legally married lesbian as premier in 2014!). And he voted to look at abortion restrictions in 2012.

Those federal issues might be ancient history, but what about the province’s future? The aspiring premier insists it is for PC members to say, not him.

An updated sex-ed curriculum? Speaking to protesters last February, Brown told them: “Only parents can decide what is age appropriate for their child.”

Corporate tax cuts? “The membership is sick and fed up of leadership being announced by a select few,” he tells me. “Lemme just leave it at that.”

Road tolls to relieve gridlock? Brown won’t say either way.

On global warming, Brown is strangely conflicted: “It would not be my plan to bring in a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax.”

But when reminded that his political role model, former Quebec premier Jean Charest, introduced a cap-and-trade regime - and that another mentor, ex-PM Brian Mulroney, used a similar system to fight acid rain - he seems stymied and reverses himself: “I’m not ruling out cap-and-trade forever.”

Brown doesn’t have a hidden agenda, just no observable agenda. Once an unknown, he now seems unknowable - and possibly unstoppable.

A top-flight organizer, he lacks gravitas. Yet many Tories believe he has the raw energy to lower the party’s daunting $7 million debt and revive its moribund base - making him both bankable and winnable.

Can a politician with no discernible centre rebuild a hollowed-out party? That’s a question only PCs can answer at next month’s vote.