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Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives gathered in Ottawa this past weekend for a convention, the first under the tenure of their new leader, Patrick Brown. Brown was right to note that Ontario is desperately in need of a change after 13 bleak years of Liberal governance. It remains to be seen whether he and his party will prove to be the agents of that change.

There is cause for optimism. Under Brown, the grassroots of the party have been reinvigorated with an influx of new members (the party’s membership roster had grown alarmingly sparse in recent years). The new members are younger and more diverse than one would typically have expected to see from the Ontario PCs. The party also took the opportunity to update its image, literally, by deploying a new logo. Softer, with touches of red and green, it is a visual representation of how the party wishes Ontarians to see it.

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Especially on the green front. At the convention, Brown announced that the Ontario PCs now support carbon pricing, and spoke favourably (if only generally) of B.C.’s revenue neutral carbon tax. Change is indeed in the winds.