Conservative leadership candidate Michael Chong often claims he’s the only one in the race who really worries Justin Trudeau.

He might be right.

Chong is reluctant to call himself the “progressive candidate” out of the 14 contenders seeking the leadership, primarily because of the range of definitions associated with the label. When it’s pointed out to him that his Wikipedia page calls him a “moderate,” he laughs.

His environmental policies have been called forward-thinking, he doesn’t dump on the CBC, he’s passionate about democratic reform, he wants membership in the Conservative Party of Canada to be free, and he vows to stand firm against the kind of discriminatory and divisive rhetoric he says he hears coming from some of the other candidates.

Chong also plans to vote in favour of Motion 103, which condemns Islamaphobia and instructs the heritage committee to study discrimination against Canadian Muslims and other religious and racial groups.

Sipping on a microbrew in The Manx, Chong says he doesn’t go out often in Ottawa, but when he does this crowded basement bar is his favourite pub because “it’s small and cozy.”

He describes himself as a small town boy who grew up in rural Ontario on a dirt side-road. Son of a Chinese immigrant father and Dutch immigrant mother, Chong — who still calls Fergus, Ont., his home — is the only candidate who can claim to live on a farm. He recalls childhood days spent lying by the road and staring up at the sky, and that one time his father caught him and his sister dangling their feet off the top of a bow-stringed bridge. He now lives down the road from where he grew up, with his wife, three boys and a black lab.

So maybe it’s not so surprising that Chong appears to care more about the environment than the other candidates for the CPC leadership.

The tricky part will be convincing members to support his plan to reduce emissions through a revenue-neutral carbon tax.

“It’s the right thing to do,” says Chong when asked if it’s a challenge to convince Conservatives to embrace a carbon tax — given how the Opposition caucus has used the prospect of carbon pricing as a stick to beat the Trudeau Liberals.

“You can never go wrong by doing the right thing.”

Chong points to Brian Mulroney as a Conservative prime minister who did the “right thing” in office, bearing the brunt of voter rage and even the antipathy of many in his own party.

Mulroney campaigned on free trade in the 1988 election, despite the fact that, for over 100 years, his party had been resolutely anti-free trade, as were most politicians and Canadians.

“He said, ‘What’s the right thing for our children and grandchildren? Free trade.’ So he campaigned on it and he fought for it because it was the right thing to do. And you know what? He won. And that, for me, that is the way I look at the issue of carbon pricing.”

Doing the right thing is Chong’s political mantra, something he seems to take more seriously than any arbitrary political divisions between right and left. On the topic of U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial first weeks in power, he says that Prime Minister Trudeau’s government is taking the right approach to the new administration — that it’s standing up for Canadian values.

“We don’t believe in race-based immigration policy, we don’t believe in a religion-based immigration policy, we don’t believe in an immigration policy based on national origin,” he said. “But at the same time, (the government is) acknowledging that we have to work with this newly and democratically elected administration on areas of mutual interest.”

Trump aside, Chong says we have more than enough to deal with on our side of the border.

“Let’s be serious here. In the last two weeks we’ve had two major events take place in North America.” One was Trump’s decision to ban nationals from seven Muslim majority countries from entering the U.S. The other was the mass shooting at a mosque in Quebec City.

Shortly after the mosque attack, Chong publicly drew a connection between Muslim-bashing political demagogues and a rise in anti-Islam prejudice.

“We’ve seen a significant rise of hate crimes against identifiable minorities, Muslims, and we’ve also seen a huge rise in hate and prejudice in social media, both of which are directly linked to the rhetoric we’ve seen not just here, but south of the border and in Europe,” he says.

“So we as politicians need to be responsible about the rhetoric and the language that we use to ensure that we don’t further inflame tensions.”

Specifically, Chong is calling out his leadership rivals Kellie Leitch and Steven Blaney — both of whom have tried to turn public anxiety over immigration and Islam into political support. Chong also points to the event that many say pulled Islamophobia to centre stage in federal politics: the mid-election pitch by Leitch and leadership candidate Chris Alexander to create a “barbaric cultural practices” tip line.

Chong arguably first came to public prominence through a quixotic act of independence while serving in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s tightly-controlled cabinet: He quit the intergovernmental affairs portfolio in 2006 in protest over Harper’s decision to recognize Quebec as a “nation” within Canada.

“To me, recognizing Quebecers as a nation, even inside a united Canada, implies the recognition of ethnicity, and I cannot support that,” he said at the time. “I do not believe in an ethnic nationalism. I believe in a civic nationalism.”

Since then, Chong has spent most of his time in the public eye lobbying hard for parliamentary reform — for changes that take power away from the offices of the prime minister and party leaders and give it back to the people he thinks ought to matter most: members of Parliament. He also wants to give more autonomy to local riding associations and grassroots party groups.

“I’m also a fiscal conservative, I truly believe in free markets and much lower income taxes. I don’t believe in an expansive state. I think … an overly expansive state takes away the autonomy of individuals to make decisions.

“If I become prime minister of this country, we are going to see sweeping reforms to the House of Commons that are going to strip away the power of party leaders and the prime minister to run the House of Commons and to control MPs.”

He vows to take away from the prime minister and party leaders the power to decide who gets to sit on committees, and wants committee memberships chosen through secret ballot votes.

“It’s leader control … the leader decides through their good graces who gets to sit on what committees,” he says. “And if you don’t toe the line you’re removed from committee. It’s an appalling system.”

He also says that the leader of the Official Opposition shouldn’t be the one who decides who speaks in the House of Commons — that’s the prerogative of the Speaker, he insists.

As we’re wrapping up our interview, a young couple at the next table over gets up to leave.

“I just wanted to say good luck,” says the young woman, smiling. “I’ve been watching you all night … and it’s great, good luck.”

Chong, of course, smiles back.