Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak has abandoned his cornerstone policy to defang unions on the eve of a possible spring election.

Hudak, during a breakfast speech Friday, jettisoned his U.S.-style right-to-work plan that faced opposition from within the party, organized labour and the public.

He defended his climbdown, saying his controversial labour reform — which was still on the party’s website Friday — was just one of 15 policy papers and simply didn’t make the cut.

“You got to make the most impact on jobs and the economy. It didn’t make the cut. We got a better plan,” Hudak told reporters after his speech to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.

Party insiders feared a repeat of the disastrous 2007 campaign when then leader John Tory promised taxpayer funding for a wide range of religious schools.

“Quite frankly for every one person . . . who said they liked this policy I heard from a hundred others who said focus on getting hydro rates under control, get taxes down, do something about the skilled trade in Ontario. So the choice is clear,” Hudak said.

But critics say right-to-work is at the core of Hudak’s being, and that his public renouncing of the policy is simply not believable.

Premier Kathleen Wynne said she’s not buying Hudak’s transformation.

“I don’t see this actually as a change of direction. I think that Tim Hudak has responded to an uproar in his own caucus,” she said in Sudbury, noting just this week the Tories introduced a private member’s bill that would contract out public sector jobs.

NDP MPP Gilles Bisson said, “A lot of people are going to be wondering is there a hidden agenda because we know this is something he is heavily invested in?”

At the centre of the Tories’ labour reform plans was a proposal to get rid of the Rand Formula.

The formula dates back to an arbitration decision by Canadian court Justice Ivan Rand in 1946, part of the arbitration settlement that ended a United Auto Workers’ strike at the Ford plant in Windsor, Ont. It ensured there are no so-called free riders, those who would benefit from union bargaining and representation without paying dues.

Critics said Hudak’s move would have gutted unions and led to the depressed wages and benefits seen in several U.S. states that have adopted a right-to-work policy.

“This ‘right-to-work’ issue just doesn’t have the scope or the power to fix the issues that are threatening 100 per cent of the manufacturing jobs in Ontario. So if we’re elected, we’re not going to do it — we’re not going to change the so-called ‘Rand Formula.’ Our agenda is a lot bigger, and a lot more ambitious, than that,” Hudak told the crowd at Toronto Region Board of Trade.

In September, the anti-union idea only narrowly won support at a policy convention in London, Ont., making critics in the party doubt even more that it was the right move.

Even though he backed off right-to-work in his speech, almost in the same breath Hudak said, “Why should anybody have to join a union they don’t support?”

Union leaders told the Star they still don’t trust Hudak.

Unifor national president Jerry Dias said Hudak “is a right-wing extremist who honestly believes in the right to work for less.”

“Do I believe he has changed his mind if he is elected? Absolutely not,” Dias said.

Warren (Smokey) Thomas said: “I don’t believe for one minute that his fight with labour is over . . . I think they will just come at us in a different way. Don’t trust him at all.”

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Hudak’s retreat comes on the heels of the Tories’ byelection loss in Niagara Falls, where union leader Wayne Gates reminded voters time and again of Hudak’s plan to gut unions. Gates edged the Tory candidate Bart Maves by 962 votes, even though the riding includes Hudak’s hometown of Fort Erie.

Hudak’s comments during the speech were a far cry from those made previously, when he demonized union leaders and blamed organized labour for holding back the province.

“I just think we have reached a level in the 21st century that an approach based in the 1950s is holding us back,” Hudak told reporters in September following the convention.