

Chris Fox, CP24.com





Coun. Doug Ford says the Ontario PC party needs an “enema” and he isn’t counting out running for the leadership himself to make sure it gets one.

Ford made the comment to CP24 on Friday afternoon, less than 12 hours after Kathleen Wynne led the Liberals to an improbable majority government and PC Leader Tim Hudak announced he’d step aside in the wake of the defeat.

“That whole party needs an enema from one end to another and I am not too sure if I am going to get the power washer out (myself) but we will see what happens,” he said. “I am not counting it out.”

Ford has previously expressed a desire to run for the PC party provincially, but in February he told reporters that he would forgo trying to run in the upcoming election so he could focus on managing his brother’s re-election campaign.

Now with the provincial Tories licking their wounds from what was a sound defeat, the outgoing Etobicoke-North councillor admits the “door is open” towards him running for the leadership of the party, though he says his main priority is still Toronto.

“The door is always open in politics but again my priority is to make sure we focus on the city here because Toronto is the engine of Ontario,” he said.

Ford says Tories must patch up relationship with unions

Despite holding a lead in many early polls, Tim Hudak and the Tories finished on the outside looking in Thursday night with 27 seats to the Liberals 59.

Discussing the result with reporters at city hall earlier in the day, Ford blamed the party’s promise to eliminate 100,000 public sector jobs for the defeat and suggested that the Tories would need to rebuild their relationship with unions going forward if they are to eventually form a government.

“I have said it over and over again. Union members are fiscal conservatives. They don’t like seeing government waste money. You just don’t go after the unions. It’s very simple,” Ford said. “Unfortunately I guess my message didn’t get through to the PC party.”

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