Premier Kathleen Wynne is proposing a “code of conduct” for MPPs after Progressive Conservative member Jack MacLaren’s sexist comments about a female Liberal MP.

Wynne’s plan came the same day Conservative Leader Patrick Brown finally censured MacLaren — and almost two weeks after the Star revealed the controversial MPP’s “joke” about Grit MP Karen McCrimmon.

On Monday, Brown announced the MPP for Carleton-Mississippi Mills has been demoted and will undergo “sensitivity training.”

Pouncing on the Tories’ problems, Wynne wrote to Speaker Dave Levac proposing a “the development of a code of conduct for members, including mechanisms for addressing complaints, as well as training and education initiatives for members.”

The premier’s salvo came 90 minutes after Brown’s 8:30 a.m. statement on MacLaren’s punishment.

She said Government House leader Yasir Naqvi would work his Tory and NDP counterparts on ensuring Queen’s Park is “a safe and healthy environment, including one that is free from harassment, intimidation and bullying.”

Both opposition parties immediately endorsed the initiative.

Brown was not in the legislature Monday as he was running in the Boston marathon, finishing 3,977th place in his 18-39 age group with a time of 4:16.03.

But in a statement he said he was sanctioning MacLaren over the MPP’s “recent inappropriate conduct.”

“MPP MacLaren’s legislative responsibilities, including his role as critic, natural resources and forestry and vice-chair, standing committee on the legislative assembly, will be reassigned,” the rookie leader said.

“Further, MPP MacLaren will be taking time away from Queen’s Park in order to focus on his constituency work and partake in sensitivity training,” said Brown.

“I have been clear that there is no room for anything less than respect and tolerance in the Ontario PC Party and caucus, in our legislature, and society,” he said.

“Reassignment of MPP MacLaren’s roles will remain in effect until such time as I determine that appropriate corrective action has been taken.”

PC deputy leader Steve Clark said Tory MPPs already had sensitivity training, but it’s not clear whether MacLaren attended.

“It was part of our caucus meeting a year ago in February. It was a full-day caucus meeting with a substantial portion, I believe it was a couple of hours or a half a day” of lessons on discrimination and harassment, said Clark, noting MacLaren will have to pay for additional sensitivity training out of his own pocket.

Brown’s actions came after Wynne said Friday she would have ejected MacLaren from the Liberal caucus for such behaviour.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Thursday she wouldn’t tolerate similar antics in her party.

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As first revealed by the Star on April 6, MacLaren humiliated ‎McCrimmon (Kanata-Carleton) at a cancer fundraiser in Carp, Ont.

The Tory MPP called the Liberal MP onto the stage in front of 350 people, commented on her body, then told a vulgar gag about her and her husband’s sex life.

He apologized to her only after the story was published.

Aside from the misogynistic statements, MacLaren has also come under fire after the Ottawa Citizen discovered he had posted fake testimonials from “constituents” on his official website, using photographs collected on the Internet.

The website has since been removed.

Brown and his advisers have been slow to address the MacLaren matter, which has worried some Tory members, who feel it undermines the party’s attacks on the governing Liberals’ transgressions.

Initially, the PC leader removed the Ottawa-area MPP from the largely ceremonial post as chair of the party’s Eastern Ontario caucus last Wednesday, but that did little to appease anyone.

“It was important to express that I wasn’t happy and there’s consequences, and that’s why he was demoted from that position. The demotion speaks for itself,” Brown said last Thursday of the first punishment.

MacLaren did not return messages from the Star on Monday.

With files from Rob Ferguson

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