Several years ago, on a flight from Ottawa to Toronto, the fella sitting across the aisle struck up a conversation. He mentioned we’d met many years earlier—when he was a young conservative activist. I had to confess, I didn’t remember him. He re-introduced himself.
“I’m Patrick Brown,” he said.
“Nice to see you again, Patrick,” I replied. “And what do you do now?”
“I’m the MP for Barrie,” he responded politely.
As a guy who follows politics pretty carefully, both provincially and federally, I was embarrassed I didn’t recognize him. Then again, I thought, does it say something about an MP that a guy who follows politics that carefully has no clue who he is?
Brown has been a federal Conservative MP since 2006, but over the last decade, he’s been a rare sighting at Queen’s Park, where he hopes to soon be the leader of the provincial Tories (he’s also a difficult guy to miss—he’s a dead ringer for the best basketball player to ever come out of Canada, future Hall of Famer, Steve Nash).
And yet Brown’s the front-runner among signed-up members.
Brown is fond of saying he has traveled all over the province and gone to innumerable so-called “ethnic community events,” but he’s “never seen anyone from the provincial party at these events.” He’s been to India more than a dozen times and calls the country’s new Prime Minister Narinder Modi a friend. He feels comfortable in parts of the province where the PC Party hasn’t been competitive for more than 10 years.
Brown’s camp quickly figured out something Elliott’s camp didn’t: the past months haven’t been about developing policy, landing high-profile endorsements, or raising money. Elliott clearly won that campaign. The party caucus is overwhelmingly behind her, and she has the support of big names, such as former Premiers Bill Davis and Mike Harris and the Ford brothers.
But as Elliott lined up all that, Brown and his people were out selling, selling, selling. They shocked long-time Tories several weeks ago, when the party revealed the Brown campaign sold more than 40,000 memberships – a higher number than the combined total of all four candidates during the last PC Party leadership campaign six years ago.
Brown’s willingness to discuss issues and policy is weak. During a leadership candidates’ debate on The Agenda last Friday, Brown either couldn’t or wouldn’t name a single tax policy change he’d make as PC leader. Elliott proposed cutting the corporate tax rate by one billion dollars over several years.
But perhaps Conservatives don’t care much about policy—at least, not at this stage. One MPP told me he’s supporting Elliott not because of her political views, but because he thinks she has a better chance of winning the next election and he’s “just so sick of losing.”
On the other hand, Brown can boast he isn’t connected to the past four Ontario PC Party election losses, in particular, Tim Hudak’s disastrous defeat last year when he misguidedly pledged to eliminate 100,000 positions from the public service. Even though Hudak made the announcement in Barrie, Brown had nothing to do with the proposal. He maintains he knew the election was over the minute the words left Hudak’s lips.
(For the record, Elliott also insists she knew nothing about the promise. According to her, Hudak and his inner circle didn’t give the provincial party caucus the opportunity to vet the idea, something she says isn’t going to happen if she’s leader.)
Brown doesn’t have the life experience Elliott does. She’s the mother of triplet sons, one of whom has developmental disabilities, and she lost husband Jim Flaherty, the former federal finance minister, just before the last provincial election.
Brown’s a single man, never married and without any kids. (Although he said at the TVO debate he hopes to get married and have children someday.) I’ve talked to Progressive Conservatives for whom that’s an issue. They wish he had more “real life” experience, presumably because if you’re going to legislate on issues affecting families, it’s good to have one of your own, if only to give you greater empathy in making decisions.
It’s not without precedent for a bachelor to achieve high office in Canada. William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada’s longest-serving prime minister, was a lifelong bachelor. So, too, was Prime Minister R.B. Bennett. But it is unusual.
Brown’s French is excellent (Elliott’s taking lessons, but she doesn’t speak French off the cuff; only in speeches), and he has improved his presentation skills significantly over the course of the campaign. He also hasn’t made a single memorable speech during the leadership race—but again, maybe he doesn’t need to.
Winning the party leadership is actually quite simple: sign up more members than your opponent and make sure they come out to vote. Brown’s confident he’s done the first; he thinks the second will follow on May 9 when the vote tallies are revealed.
If he does win, he probably won’t take many more flights where political reporters like me don’t recognize him.
Full Disclosure: My wife is a volunteer advisor for the Christine Elliott campaign. As well, I have participated in Patrick Brown’s charity events to raise funds for the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie.
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