TORONTO

I’m awestruck (awestricken?) by the capacity of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario to self-destruct.

No other party I’ve covered has the ability to grab defeat from the jaws of victory quite the way they do.

Last year’s election was a masterpiece of self-immolation. All former leader Tim Hudak had to do was show up and promise to be honest, not to cancel gas plants and not waste money on schemes like Ornge and he’d have won a majority government.

Somehow someone convinced him that was way too simple. So he promised to scrap 100,000 jobs — and the rest is history.

It happened in 2007, when all then-PC leader John Tory had to do was show up and promise to be honest. The problem was, he was too honest. He’d be premier now if he hadn’t honoured a commitment to fund religious schools in his platform.

When they launched their leadership campaign last summer, the Tories pledged to focus on winning the next provincial election.

They vowed to talk to the party’s grassroots. They said they’d reach out to the province’s many multicultural communities where Tories traditionally aren’t strong.

It was all about renewal and reinvigorating the party.

What have they done?

Well, judging from a news release put out by Whitby-Oshawa MPP Christine Elliott, deemed the front-runner at the beginning of the race, they’ve succeeded in splitting the party once again.

Elliott’s release Monday accused her main rival, Barrie MP Patrick Brown, of “significant discrepancies” in his fundraising claims. Brown claims to have sold an astonishing 40,000-plus party memberships by the sign-up deadline, Feb. 28.

Elliott accused Brown of not reporting the proceeds of three major fundraisers and said he’s only reported $197,316 to Elections Ontario, while his campaign says he’s raised $500,000.

Brown’s campaign responded, saying they’d transferred $439,805 in membership dues paid by the new members he’d signed up, and dismissed the rest of her complaints.

His campaign said he’s the only candidate who’s called for the party to release details of the membership sales.

“Rather than be transparent about her membership sales, Christine Elliott’s campaign has so far released a number of different membership sales figures,” the Brown campaign news release said.

“And, we understand they sent a lawyer’s letter to the PC Party of Ontario threatening them if they released any campaign’s membership sales figures — including Brown’s. What is she hiding?” the release asked.

Party president Richard Ciano said Elections Ontario provides financial oversight in leadership campaigns under the Elections Finances Act.

Those disclosures determine the fees owed to the party by leadership candidates, he said.

“Elections Ontario has not notified us that any candidate in our leadership race is in breach of its financial disclosure requirements, nor do we have any separate reason to believe so,” he said.

Ciano added that any candidate who failed to pay fees in accordance with party rules and the PC party constitution could face expulsion from the race.

He would neither confirm or deny Brown’s claim that Elliott has sent a lawyer’s letter to the party regarding the release of membership numbers.

“We do not discuss the nature or content of our communications with leadership campaigns,” Ciano said.

It’s apparent from this exchange that Brown has shaken the provincial party to its core.

The best comparison of his campaign to Elliott’s is that he’s run an Uber campaign — the upstart who’s come in and changed the way the party does business. She’s taken the safe, traditional approach.

What they both need to remember is that once the campaign is over, whoever wins will have to glue back together the Humpty Dumpty pieces of a party that just can’t stop falling off the wall.

christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca