Patrick Brown spent the summer putting to work the canvassing and campaign organization skills that saw him beat out caucus favourite Christine Elliott for the party leadership.Roy MacGregor/The Globe and Mail
Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown ran to win, but the governing Liberals and the NDP used the Simcoe North by-election as a platform to test-drive their political strategies and pet issues.
While Mr. Brown campaigned on issues including soaring power rates and labour peace on the education front, the Liberals tried out their strategy of defining the new Tory Leader as a social conservative with a hidden agenda.
The NDP, meanwhile, hammered home its concerns over the partial privatization of Hydro One, directing most of its vitriol at Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals rather than attacking Mr. Brown in an attempt to win the seat.
The mostly rural riding is a long-time PC stronghold. So, it was no surprise that Mr. Brown, who was elected leader in May and did not have a seat at Queen's Park, won it Thursday night. He will take his new seat across from Ms. Wynne on Sept. 14 when the legislature resumes.
What was surprising is the strength of the Tory support, especially given the vote was on a summer day before a long weekend when people are less likely to be paying attention. The turnout was 40.8 per cent, compared with 53.3 per cent in the 2014 provincial election.
Mr. Brown won with 53.7 per cent of the vote, increasing 10 points from the 43.9 per cent his predecessor Garfield Dunlop attracted in the 2014 election. Mr. Dunlop resigned the seat to allow Mr. Brown to run.
As the PCs' percentage increased, the Liberals dropped from 32.5 per cent of the vote in 2014 to 23.5 per cent Thursday night; the NDP's vote went up slightly from 15.5 per cent in 2014 to 16.8 per cent.
Brown strategists say the results prove the Wynne strategy backfired miserably.
"I think the Liberals are going to have to abandon their negative campaign. They have to realize it was a big failure for them," says Walied Soliman, a Toronto lawyer and one Mr. Brown's closest advisers.
Partway through the campaign, Deputy Premier Deb Matthews sent out a pointed letter to 47,000 homes in the riding, suggesting Mr. Brown's record as an MP showed he was against abortion and same-sex marriage.
"I thought it was one of the more vicious by-election ad campaigns the Liberals have ever done," says PC party strategist John Capobianco. "Without a doubt I think [this was] the Liberals' attempt, since he won leadership, to try to define Patrick as a social conservative," he says.
The Liberals don't deny the tactic. A senior Wynne official says the party was "realistic" about its chances of beating Mr. Brown in the long-time Tory-held riding.
The NDP's campaign targeted hospital funding – but mostly focused on the Hydro One sale.
"You always hope that your candidate will have a shot but we went in realistically and knew that would be extremely difficult," says Mike Balagus, chief of staff to NDP Leader Andrea Horwath. "But we also knew from intelligence on the ground and from research we did in advance of the campaign that there was a big opportunity on Hydro One. I think that played out. At the end of the day the Liberals dropping 10 points does not look good on them."
In fact, Mr. Balagus credits the Tory surge in popularity to the NDP's campaign against the Hydro One sale. The Tories also oppose it, arguing that the government will lose control of the utility and rates will increase.
"I think if the [PCs] were being honest, I think that Hydro One played a major part in some of the votes they picked up," says Mr. Balagus.