Battle lines have been drawn as former MPP Christine Elliott and political newcomer Caroline Mulroney join the Progressive Conservative leadership race in the wake of Patrick Brown’s dramatic demise.

Elliott tweeted “I’m in!” Thursday afternoon — her first Twitter post in more than two years — after a week of talking to Tory MPPs and party activists since Brown resigned over allegations of sexual impropriety.

“It really was a ‘draft Christine’ movement of relentless phone calls from people across the party,” said Elliott spokesperson Melanie Paradis.

“We need a leader who is ready now to take on (Premier) Kathleen Wynne in 130 days and win.”

Elliott, 62, a lawyer who represented Whitby-Oshawa until resigning the seat after a bitter leadership loss to Brown in 2015, is now considering where to run in the June 7 provincial election. Her old seat, previously held by her late husband Jim Flaherty who went on to become federal finance minister, now belongs to Tory MPP Lorne Coe.

With no members of the Conservative caucus in the March 10 leadership contest, Elliott is the only contender with experience in the legislature, said John Capobianco, a veteran public relations executive and Conservative power broker.

“At a time like this, the party needs someone with a steady hand on the tiller,” he added, noting pressure on Elliott to run increased after interim leader and Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli said Tuesday he would not seek the job full time.

A Mulroney campaign official said the former prime minister’s daughter, a 43-year-old lawyer running to replace retiring Conservative MPP Julia Munro in York-Simcoe, would formally launch her bid “within days,” likely Monday.

PC candidate Christine Elliott describes her perfect Sunday.

“We think she’s the only one who can beat Kathleen Wynne,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss strategy.

“With all due respect to Christine, she’s done this twice and retired and taken a Liberal patronage appointment,” said the Mulroney insider, referring to Elliott’s unsuccessful leadership bids in 2009 and 2015 and her latest role as Ontario’s $220,000-a-year patient ombudsman.

Elliott set up the office created by Wynne’s Liberal government to keep closer tabs on troubles that patients face in the health-care system — an issue she was passionate about in her days as Progressive Conservative health critic. She resigned Thursday, said the office of Health Minister Eric Hoskins.

“It’s time for an outsider, and Doug Ford can’t beat Kathleen Wynne in a general election,” the Mulroney source added.

Ford, the bombastic former city councillor and brother of the late Toronto mayor Rob Ford, announced earlier this week he will run for the leadership.

He will hold a campaign kickoff rally Saturday evening at the Toronto Congress Centre.

“You’ll hear a little bit more about our platform then,” Ford, who has not been nominated to run in a riding in the June 7 vote, said in a radio interview Thursday.

The party requires candidates to stick with the platform Brown released in late November, but Ford, 53, has been critical of the PC plan for a carbon tax and the party’s acceptance of the Wynne government’s modernized sex education curriculum.

The premier signalled Thursday she would relish a challenge on that front, saying the update for the social media era is essential to “create more safety for kids.”

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“Anyone who challenges that is going to have to take me on,” Wynne, 64, told reporters after meeting with auto executives in Vaughan.

Ford evaded a question on whether Brown, who represents the Barrie-area riding of Simcoe North, should be forced out of the PC caucus at Queen’s Park. Fedeli has asked Brown to “do the right thing” and sit as an independent.

“Let’s see what happens,” said Ford, expected to run in his home turf of Etobicoke North.

Mulroney’s lack of experience in politics and return to Canada after years of living in the United States is drawing fire from a rival camp.

Doug Ford has announced he will run for the leadership of Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives.The former one-term city councillor and runner-up to John Tory in the 2014 Toronto mayoral race gathered reporters in his mother’s Etobicoke basement Monday to announce his intentions.

“She’s Michael Ignatieff meets Kim Campbell,” joked one senior Conservative, referring to the fact that Mulroney, like former federal Liberal Ignatieff, lived in the U.S. for many years. Campbell was prime minister for four months in 1993, succeeding Mulroney’s father, Brian.

Former Postmedia and Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. chairman Rod Phillips, 52, the PC candidate in the riding of Ajax now held by Liberal MPP Joe Dickson, said he is seriously considering a run for the leader’s job.

“I don’t think there’s just one person who can do that,” he said, referring of the party’s push to defeat Wynne. “I hope to be part of that discussion.”

Candidates must file nomination papers by Feb. 16. There is a registration fee of $75,000, a refundable $25,000 “compliance fee” to make sure candidates adhere to the rules and $25,000 fee for access to the party membership list.

Because candidates have had their backgrounds vetted by party officials, both Elliott and Ford will have to go through the same checks passed by Mulroney and Phillips under the leadership rules.

Brown quit a week ago after CTV reported accusations from two women when they were teens and he was the MP for Barrie. Brown has denied anything wrongdoing.

The party was rocked again Sunday when Progressive Conservative party president Rick Dykstra suddenly resigned after Maclean’s magazine called him about allegations that he sexually assaulted a Parliament Hill staffer in 2014 when he was the Conservative MP for St. Catharines. Dykstra, who remains on the party executive as past president, denies the allegations.

Fedeli said Tuesday he is content to serve as interim leader of the troubled party to “root out any rot” after discovering membership lists are suspect, the computer system was hacked in a ransomware attack and questionable spending by the executive under Brown and Dykstra.

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