Former advertising man and North Bay mayor Vic Fedeli is pitching a “bold but not mean” Progressive Conservative party if elected to replace ousted leader Tim Hudak at a convention May 9.

The MPP for Nipissing said the party, which handed Premier Kathleen Wynne a majority by losing nine seats in the June 12 election, needs to rebuild from its “crushing disappointment.”

“We’ve got to stop giving people reasons to vote against us and start giving them reasons to vote for us,” he said in a meeting room at the Toronto Stock Exchange, signalling his intent to win back seats in the GTA.

Hudak has been blamed for blowing the election with a controversial promise to cut 100,000 public sector jobs.

Fedeli proposed party members ratify future election platforms and called on them to “define what makes us progressive and what makes us conservative” while being fiscally responsible.

“It’s not about being on the right or on the left or in the centre, it’s not about political ideology, it’s about doing what’s right,” said Fedeli, who added he supports abortion rights as a decision “clearly between a patient and her doctor.”

While candidates and MPPs have repeatedly said they were blindsided by Hudak’s job cut promise, some — including Fedeli and fellow leadership hopefuls Christine Elliott, Lisa MacLeod and Monte McNaughton — did get a sneak preview two years before the election.

The preview was contained in a “letter from Tim Hudak” that they were asked to critique in their own handwriting and hand in to party officials. Copies have been leaked to the media by an anonymous source.

The undated document mentioned a proposal to “decrease the government payroll by 100,000” by contracting out “many of these jobs . . . to the private sector” — a caveat not promised by Hudak during the first week of last spring’s campaign.

McNaughton, who confirmed the authenticity of the documents on which he wrote the cuts proposal was “bold, specific, great!!” said there was no further mention of the idea before the election, even at a policy convention in London to help set the platform.

“It was never talked about again,” he told the Star. “It was just disastrous what ended up being the policy. It demonstrates the top-down, heavy-handed policy process.”

McNaughton, who has proposed letting party members pick election platforms, declared his candidacy last week. Elliott put her name forward in June, shortly after the election.

MacLeod and MP Patrick Brown (Barrie), the only Queen’s Park outsider, have yet to officially declare their intentions. Brown has scheduled an announcement Sunday and MacLeod’s is expected in a few weeks.