Hudak’s Leadership in Question at Party Meeting

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak’s political future is on the line as angry Tory MPPs and defeated candidates convene for a post-mortem fight at a party meeting on Monday. Appearing for the first time in public since leading the Tories to a humiliating defeat at the hands of Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals last Thursday, Hudak refused to answer any questions on his way into the caucus meeting at Queen’s Park on 1 p.m.

However other notable Conservative MPPs had a lot to say on their way into the meeting on Monday. Infuriated Todd Smith, from Prince Edward-Hastings, alleged that “there’s going to be a lot of frank and honest comments over the next couple of hours,” adding that “we need renewal in our party and it has to start today.” Smith straightforwardly blamed the party leader and the central campaign team for a controversial pledge to eliminate 100,000 public sector jobs over four years. He stated that “this was an anti-Tim Hudak election.” According to Smith, Hudak cannot remain at the helm as interim leader as he vowed to do in his concession speech last Thursday night. Smith said Hudak’s 100,000-job figure was “brutal, it was devastating — that was the moment.”

In addition to that, MPP Toby Barrett (Haldimand-Norfolk) stated that he gives “credit to the organizational skills of the public sector unions.” Talking about the Tories, Barrett added that now “we have a government for the government unions run by the government unions.” Meanwhile, MPP Randy Hillier (Larnark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington) alleged that “the 100,000 jobs absolutely” hurt PC candidates.