MacLaren.
Carleton-Mississippi Mills Progressive Conservative candidate Jack MacLaren.
Ottawa-area Tories were hesitant to wade into the controversy growing around Carleton-Mississippi Mills candidate Jack MacLaren this week.
Remarks made by former Ontario PC premier Ernie Eves at an appreciation dinner for MPP Norm Sterling have shown a growing division within the Tory party.
Eves criticized his own party for failing to defend Sterling, a 34-year Queen’s Park veteran, who was ousted during the riding’s nomination process on March 31.
MacLaren, a far-right wing politician associated with the Ontario Landowners Association, won the bitter nomination battle.
“I don’t care who hears this,” said Eves. “The treatment that Norm got from his own party was not very polite, was not fair, it was not loyal, it was not compassionate, it was not even and it was not honest,” Eves said during a dinner for Sterling at the Canadian Golf and Country Club in Stittsville on Aug. 25.
Eves later clarified his comments on a Toronto talk radio show, saying that “Tea Party” elements within the Conservatives were behind the poor treatment of Sterling.
In an interview with this newspaper last November, MacLaren said it was “fair” to compare the local Tories’ move to supplant the riding’s old guard with the Tea Party’s attempt to move the U.S. Republican party further to the right and the Wild Rose party’s attempt to pull Alberta politics in the same direction.
“All across the western world countries are willing stand up a little more. I am willing to fight for my culture and heritage and what my forefathers fought for,” MacLaren said at the time.
Tory candidates mum
Brad McNulty, communications director for MacLaren’s campaign, said MacLaren didn’t want to comment on Eves’ remarks because he wasn’t at the Aug. 25 dinner to hear the comments.
“He wishes Norm the best, whatever he decides to do with his career,” McNulty said. “He is looking forward right now.”
In fact, none of the Tory MPPs from surrounding areas were willing to comment on Eve’s statements when contacted by the this newspaper.
But Carleton-Mississippi Mills Liberal candidate Megan Cornell said she wasn’t surprised by Eves’ remarks because she has heard similar concerns from residents throughout the riding.
Cornell said the comments expose the divisions in the PC Party which had led her to throw her hat back into the ring for this election.
“There was a lot of respect for Norm and how he did politics,” Cornell said. “It’s not just how Norm was treated but what Jack is offering. There is a fairly common sentiment in the riding that that’s not at all what we’re about here.”
That worry isn’t just shared by Liberal supporters, Cornell said.
“Certainly the concern I am hearing from a really large number of Progressive Conservatives in the riding is that the name of the party and the membership of the party has been sort of co-opted by this group who figured out how to, kind of, manipulate the political process and get their candidate in and now are hoping that no one notices who, in fact, the PC candidate is,” Cornell said.
Cornell said Progressive Conservatives are coming to her side and some prominent Tories are expected to publically endorse her in the coming weeks.
Regardless, Eves is “well respected” and his comments will undoubtedly have an impact on the campaign, Cornell said.
Contests within ‘families’ tough: Hudak
Tory leader Tim Hudak addressed Eves’ comments during an Aug. 31 media scrum in Toronto, saying MacLaren was chosen by party members.
“Everybody is held to account by the local membership. And local members choose who the candidates are,” he said.
Hudak said it is “tough” when parties “have a contest within the family.”
“But it is democracy, and democracy can sometimes be messy,” Hudak said. “But we have a democratic party and we will be working with Jack MacLaren to win that seat as part of a PC government.”
Hudak said Sterling served his province extraordinarily well as a respected cabinet minister.
“He’s had impacts on positive developments in health care and the environment and he was a dean of the legislature,” Hudak said.
A representative from Norm Sterling’s Queen’s Park office said the MPP declined to comment on the matter.
Lisa McLeod, conservative MPP for Ottawa West-Nepean, did not respond to a request for comment.
Nearby Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington PC MPP Randy Hillier, himself a former Ontario Landowners Association member and founder, was not available for comment before this newspaper’s deadline.
However, the Ontario Liberal Party was quick to send out a press release when Hillier re-posted a blog entry by Jeff Goodall entitled “Pinko re-tread Ernie Eves tries to sabotage Ontario PC’s.”
With files from John Brummel, Derek Dunn and Robert Benzie, Toronto Star.
Correction: This story originally contained an incorrect spelling of Robert Benzie's name. We apologize for the error.