The newest candidate in the Progressive Conservative leadership race put another stake in the People’s Guarantee election policy booklet by joining rivals in rejecting a carbon tax.“That was Patrick Brown’s platform,” said Tanya Granic Allen, pronouncing it dead after Brown resigned three weeks ago over accusations of sexual misconduct he denies.Leadership rival Doug Ford took issue with the platform featuring Brown’s smiling face on the cover, saying it was too long.“I don’t believe in the People’s magazine version of 90 pages,” he told the debate moderated by TVO’s Steve Paikin.Ford said the carbon tax, first announced by Brown at a party convention in Ottawa shortly after he was elected leader in 2015, was opposed by “90 per cent” of party members.“How did it sneak in?”Former MPP Christine Elliott said she’d look for savings across government to make up for $4 billion in lost carbon tax revenue using her skills as a former bank auditor.“We need to be fiscally responsible.”Caroline Mulroney accused Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals of creating a “culture of waste” at Queen’s Park and promised a “fully costed plan” if she becomes PC leader in a vote of party members to be announced March 10.Elliott was MPP for Whitby-Oshawa for nine years until her resignation in 2015 following her loss to Brown in the PC leadership race. She went on to take a patronage appointment from the Liberal government as Ontario’s first patient advocate, earning $220,000 a year.Ford, a businessman and brother of late Toronto mayor Rob Ford, was a city councillor for one term and ran unsuccessfully against John Tory in the Toronto mayor’s race four years ago.Mulroney, the daughter of former prime minister Brian Mulroney, is an investment industry executive who won the PC nomination for York-Simcoe last September. The riding has been ...
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