Divisions within Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives over social issues have at least one federal Conservative leadership hopeful worried.

“This is bad,” Brad Trost said Tuesday. “The Ontario PCs are heading for a split here if they try to push out the social conservatives.”

Ontario PC Leader Patrick Brown has taken heat from the party’s social conservative wing over efforts to move the PCs down a more socially progressive path. Some political observers have warned it could cause problems for the party as they edge closer to the next provincial election.

Although not all of his MPs appear on-board with the party’s new direction. Télévision francaise de l’Ontario (TFO) reported Tuesday that PC MPP Rick Nicholls told members of the Canadian Multicultural Care Group and the Canadian Christian Association that “social issues are very, very important, but we need to form government. Then watch us go, watch us go.”

As far as Trost’s concerned, Brown needs to find a way to way to draw social conservatives back into the party fold or risk losing the election to the Liberals or NDP.

Conservative parties are “coalitions” of people who are conservative for different reasons, said Trost, a social conservative himself.

“At least 30 per cent of Ontarians are social conservative on a wide range of issues. That 30 per cent of the population overwhelmingly votes PC. If you tell them to stay home, not vote, or only vote and then have their issues completely ignored, you’re going to end up splitting your party,” he warned.

“I’m from Saskatchewan, when the NDP faced a divided opposition they ran roughshod over them. Alberta’s next door to us. You never thought the NDP could win in Alberta.

“Have we forgotten why the federal Conservative party was formed from the PCs and the Canadian Alliance Reform party?”

But Trost’s concerns may be overblown.

Rick Anderson, a former senior aide to Reform Party founder Preston Manning and the president of i2 Ideas and Issues Advertising, doesn’t see the Ontario PCs splitting into two parties.

“Not today,” he said. “I think the provincial Conservative party is pretty healthy.”

Most conservatives in Ontario want to see the PCs defeat the Liberals in 2018 and Anderson said he doesn’t see arguments over particular policies derailing that.

As for concerns that Brown is showing social conservatives the door, Anderson said disagreeing with those views isn’t the same as pushing so-cons out.

“I think Patrick Brown is doing the right kinds of things to make sure the party is broadly based,” he said.

During a year-end press conference Brown told reporters that candidates who aim to “push divisive social issues” aren’t welcome in the party, CBC reported.

“People can have their private religious views, but just know where I stand and what the focus of our party is,” he said.

Whatever views are welcomed into the conservative tent need to exist within the party’s policy framework and the broader legal framework of the province, Anderson said.

Views welcomed into the conservative tent need to exist within the party’s policy framework and the broader legal framework of the province, he said.

“Prime Minister Harper did a pretty good job in this regard, making sure the federal party continued to be open to people with a variety of perspectives but also emphasizing that it’s been 30 years or whatever since the courts have ruled on issues like abortion … and we’re not about to restart those kinds of debates,” he said.

While Anderson argues that most political parties in Canada thinks the public wants to keep moving forward on social conservative issues like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, “rather than turning back the clock,” he said there will be other issues in the future where social conservatives can provide input.

As an example, he pointed to medically-assisted death as an issue where social conservatives and progressives should bring their views to the table and work to reach a consensus.