Longtime Tory downplays push by colleagues for Hudak leadership review
Posted August 14, 2013 2:19 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO – Divisions within the Progressive Conservative caucus over the party’s leader appear to be widening as a longtime MPP chastised two of his colleagues for calling on Tim Hudak to submit to a leadership review.
Tory house leader Jim Wilson says it’s just a “sideshow” from a small group.
“Some people just can’t seem to understand that they didn’t win the leadership and keep trying to rerun that old film,” he said in an apparent reference to Frank Klees and Randy Hillier, who ran against Hudak in 2009.
Both MPPs have said that Hudak should confront his opponents head-on and allow a leadership vote to silence disgruntled Tories.
Wilson says they’re in the minority.
“If anyone thinks they’re helping the PC Party of Ontario or helping to defeat the corrupt governing Liberals by calling for a leadership review then they need to have their heads examined.”
He stopped short of saying the two should be kicked out of caucus, saying they’ll eventually come back into line.
“They’re good people. They’re just a little misguided on this. I think those individuals will come back in line once they realize that the best thing they can do for the PC Party, for our future, is to keep the momentum going with Tim as established in the last few months.”
Some Tories are upset the party only took one of five Liberal seats in the Aug. 1 byelections and lost a longtime Conservative seat in Kitchener in the 2012 byelection.
