The Progressive Conservative Party will be having an election to pick a new leader with voting on 2 days: May 3 and May 7, 2015. There are five candidates, Christine Elliott, Lisa MacLeod, Vic Fedeli, Monty McNaughton and Patrick Brown. The first four candidates are from the former Hudak government and the 5th candidate, Patrick Brown is a sitting Federal Conservative MP.
The Ontario Landowners Association (OLA) has always worked with politicians who support our efforts to improve the lives of the people of Ontario who have been wronged by their own government agencies. These agencies have overstepped the mandate of the government and in doing so often make criminals of people who are doing something on their property that has always been a normal practice since this country began.
The fact is that the OLA is made up of members from all parties and we try to lobby all parties to educate them as to what we see as serious infringements into the lives of property owners. This infringement creates stress, reduces property values, takes away the ability to use and enjoy their land and reduces Ontario citizens’ ability to create wealth for this country. The small ‘c’ nature of our philosophy however, makes us more inclined to be aligned with a conservative party. The PC party of the past three elections, has unfortunately, not shown any will to talk to us or give any value to our suggestion that they needed to get back to the grassroots and find out what the people wanted. Instead, they controlled everything from Toronto and even when we sent our former president, Jack MacLaren to Toronto as a sitting MPP, they proceeded to marginalize him and refused to support him in any of his private members bills, even to the point of standing with the liberals and criticizing him. Obviously the present PC caucus does not want input from the grassroots even though they now profess that they do.
I do believe that there are some good MPP’s in this PC party but they will need new leadership to help them rebuild this party back to a place of respect and trustworthiness that will eventually entice our small ‘c’ conservative supporters back to the voting booths.
The OLA has had several meetings with MP Patrick Brown and found him to be a very quick study of the provincial issues and a man with the endless energy to get out and meet the people to find out what the issues are. We feel that his ‘let’s get to work’ attitude is very refreshing and his focus on the whole of Ontario, the urban, the rural and the north, is something that has been sadly lacking for the past three elections. To that end, we are asking our county chapters to show Patrick as much support as possible in the coming leadership race.
To support Patrick Brown, you need to buy a PC membership ($10 with an email) and do this before Feb. 28. Online works as well, www.votepatrickbrown.ca. He is very open to meeting new people and learning of the concerns that people have across this province.