It is no secret that Patrick Brown and the ruling Ontario Progressive Conservative Party aren’t BFFs.

Brown, newly elected as Brampton’s mayor, was the party’s leader before stepping down at the end of January amid sexual misconduct allegations from a pair of women. He has denied those allegations and is suing CTV News for defamation over its initial reporting on the story.

He was later booted from the PC caucus, essentially ending all affiliations with the party he led only weeks before, and replaced by Doug Ford, who is now premier.

“I never got along with the hard-right in my own party. I took positions that you didn’t expect from Progressive Conservatives,” Brown told the Brampton Guardian, listing his participation in Toronto’s Gay Pride Parade, support for climate change action and stance against Islamophobia as driving factors in the falling out.

“That certainly made some enemies within the party, but I felt that I was doing what was right for Canada and for Ontario,” he added.

Since then, Brown first attempted a political comeback in the race to become the first elected Peel Region chair. That attempt was squashed by the Ford government at the end of July after it cancelled the planned regional chair elections in Peel, York and Muskoka regions just a day before municipal election nominations were set to close.

The next day, Brown registered in the Brampton mayor’s race.

Rumours of a rift between him and his former party gained traction on the campaign trail after Ford’s campaign manager, Michael Diamond, and two former PC Party presidents endorsed and held a fundraiser for incumbent mayor Linda Jeffrey at the uber-conservative Toronto Albany Club in September.

Jeffrey was a longtime political opponent of the PC Party while serving as a Brampton MPP in Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal governments.

Brown ended up defeating Jeffrey in the Oct. 22 municipal election to become the city’s next mayor.

Social media blew up and continued to fuel speculation Ford and the Ontario government had it out for Brown just a day after election, after the PCs announced they were scrapping promised provincial funding for three university campus expansions, including $90 million for a downtown Ryerson campus in Brampton.

While Brown conceded that he has made enemies in the party, he doesn’t believe the decision to scrap the funding was directed at him personally.

“I was always a Bill Davis conservative, a red Tory. That might not be the current incarnation of the party. Although, I don’t think (the) announcement with Ryerson had anything to do with personal animosity,” he said.

The premier and PC Party also denied any animosity or efforts directed at Brown personally.

“Premier Doug Ford is looking forward to working with all newly-elected municipal politicians, including Patrick Brown,” said Simon Jeffries, a spokesperson for the premier’s office

“The Ontario PC caucus has an excellent team of MPPs from Brampton and Peel Region who are strong representatives for their constituents, and Premier Doug Ford is proud to fight day-in and day-out for the people of Brampton and the people of Ontario at Queen’s Park,” he added.

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Brown identified crime and economic development as the two areas he intends to focus on after he officially takes the reins in December.

Looking a little further down the road, Brown listed other campaign initiatives such as free transit for seniors and expanding the low-income dental plan for seniors as other files he hopes to tackle during his four-year term.

Graeme Frisque is a reporter with The Mississauga News and Brampton Guardian

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