When the man who could be Ontario’s next premier needs to escape politics, he heads for his favourite restaurant and sports bar.But Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown never orders a pint of beer or a cocktail. Brown stops by because he bought Hooligans in downtown Barrie — which claims the biggest TV screen north of Toronto at 6 metres (20 feet) tall — three years ago with a group of friends when he was the city’s Conservative MP. “I drive our Diet Coke bill up,” he says with a laugh, given that he’s a lifelong teetotaller — a habit that dates to a Grade 9 promise to his mom.In a life consumed by politics since he was a teen, more than half his 39 years, the single Brown likes that his pals aren’t interested in the rough and tumble game that pays his annual salary of $180,886. “In this job you’re so busy it’s nice to be able to force yourself to find time to catch up with good friends who will treat you exactly the same way and don’t want to talk about politics.”“They want to talk about everything else,” adds Brown, who hosts a PC policy convention Saturday at the Toronto Congress Centre in preparation for the June 7 provincial election. While he’s the party boss setting a more centrist course to better challenge Premier Kathleen Wynne — an effort not without stumbles — the MPP for Simcoe North is a self-described “small and silent partner” at Hooligans, where the motto is Eat. Drink. Cheer. The little-known side play is an unexpected revelation about Brown, who’s honed a public image as a hockey fanatic and happy political warrior on the clock from 7 a.m. to midnight many days since winning the job in May 2015. “There hasn’t been enough out there about who he genuinely is,” laments his two-years-younger sister, Stephanie Brown. The Toronto dentist and mother of three young boys takes credit for her brot ...
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