Rod Phillips, the chair of Postmedia and former head of Ontario Lottery and Gaming, is running for the Progressive Conservatives in Ajax next spring.

Phillips, chair of the board for the nonpartisan CivicAction urban affairs organization, heads Postmedia, Canada’s largest newspaper company, owners of the National Post, the Toronto Sun, and the Ottawa Citizen.

As first disclosed by the Star, he will be the candidate to replace lawyer Todd McCarthy, who withdrew his candidacy last month, as the Tory standard-bearer in the redrawn riding of Ajax in the June 7, 2018 election.

The existing riding is known as Ajax-Pickering and has been held by Liberal backbencher Joe Dickson, 77, since 2007.

Dickson defeated McCarthy in the 2014 election with 51 per cent of the vote to the PC candidate’s 29 per cent.

“I only have one job in life and that’s to work seven days a week, around the clock, for my residents in Ajax,” the Liberal MPP said Thursday when the Star informed him who he would be facing off against next year.

The Tories, who have done a lot of polling in Ajax this year, believe things will be different next spring as they try to topple Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals.

Phillips, 52, who will step aside from his Postmedia and CivicAction responsibilities, said he wants to be part of the “positive, inclusive” team being assembled by Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown.

“Ajax has been left behind by Premier Wynne and her government. High electricity costs are a burden on families and businesses and discourage new investments from being made here,” he said.

“Commuters are spending more and more time trying to get to and from their jobs and that means less time with family.”

His candidacy is a coup for Brown because the well-respected business and civic leader is widely seen as a potential senior minister in a Tory government.

“I’m excited that Rod is looking to run as a candidate for the party,” the PC leader said in an email.

“He’s highly respected and it’s a good sign that candidates of his calibre want to run for us,” added Brown.

Close to Toronto Mayor John Tory, Phillips is a centrist with deep ties in the PC party dating back to his campus days at Western University in the 1980s.

But he is also well-regarded by the Liberals at Queen’s Park. Former premier Dalton McGuinty hired him to lead the financial and cultural turnaround at OLG in 2011. He served as president and CEO of the Crown agency until 2014.

OLG, which operates the 800-machine slots at Ajax Downs, is one of the largest employers in the riding.

Phillips was a chief of staff to former Toronto mayor Mel Lastman in the first days of the megacity in the late 1990s and was later president of Shepell-fgi, the employee assistance company, now known as Morneau-Shepell.

He brings to Brown’s burgeoning roster of candidates some additional Bay Street heft, joining financial services veteran Peter Bethlenfalvy in Pickering-Uxbridge and high-profile lawyer Caroline Mulroney in York-Simcoe.

Insiders close to the Tory leader said Phillips will be one of the candidates the party will be showcasing at their policy convention in Toronto later this month.

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Having not won an Ontario election since 1999, the Tories are eager to demonstrate that they are ready to govern with a slate of electable candidates from all walks of life.

They are also hopeful that an uncontested nomination of Phillips in the next few weeks will put to rest some of the controversial internecine battles that have plagued Brown’s party this year.

There has been serious problems with PC nominations in at least seven of the 124 ridings in the province.

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