 Tim Hudak emerged early on as a favourite to win, winning the support of former premier Mike Harris. (Ministry Office)
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MARKHAM, Ont. - Ontario's Progressive Conservatives took a sharp right turn Saturday by crowning Tim Hudak as their new leader, a man who's made it his mission to turn the party back to the right-wing values that propelled it to power 14 years ago.
Hudak claimed 5,606 electoral votes in the closely fought provincewide race, beating out his closest rival Frank Klees, who took 4,644 votes.
Right-wing rookie Randy Hillier finished last and Christine Elliott, who is married to federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and largely considered to be Hudak's biggest competition, placed third.
Hudak, 41, quickly rallied the troops Saturday, saying he's more than ready to take on the job of bringing down the ruling Liberals in the next provincial election.
"My friends, today is the last day of our leadership race, but it is the first day for the 2011 campaign," said the former cabinet minister from the Niagara area.
"And this race has given us momentum that we must build upon step-by-step for the next 832 days, because we must take Ontario down an entirely different path than the one we're on."
Klees, who lost his second bid for the top job, joked that the tight race gave him immunity from any blowback.
"I'm not supposed to speak very long, but I will because I can," he said.
"I don't think the new leader of our party would cut me off. I think he might need me along the way."
Hudak succeeds John Tory, who triggered the race when he resigned in March, and interim leader Bob Runciman.
Hudak emerged early on as a favourite to win, with a well-oiled organizational team backing him and the support of his mentor, former premier Mike Harris.
Prominent Tories from the Harris era also endorsed Hudak during the four-month race, including John Baird and Tony Clement, who now sit at Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet table.
Hudak has strong ties to the Harris era and is even married to the ex-premier's former chief of staff, Deb Hutton, with whom he has a 20-month-old daughter, Miller.
Harris, who sat front row centre at the convention, said Hudak is the kind of leader who can put Ontario back on the right track.
"It's a very different track from what (Liberal Premier) Dalton McGuinty is on," Harris said.
"It's not spend more than you have, it's not trying to be all things to all people. It's give the absolute, most help and support to the most vulnerable and the neediest - not to everybody."
Many observers predict that under Hudak, the party will swing back to the neo-conservative Harris days and abandon the Red Tory tradition that was the hallmark of the party's 42-year dynasty in the post-war period.
Hudak created waves during the campaign by adopting a thorny proposal to scrap Ontario's Human Rights Tribunal and have discrimination cases heard in courts, which Hillier first proposed.
It became a bone of contention between the four candidates as the race wore on, culminating in Hudak accusing Klees of being "Liberal-lite" for opposing the idea during a televised debate.
Both Klees and Elliott warned the policy will tank as badly with voters as Tory's doomed campaign promise to fund religious schools, giving the ruling Liberals an easy victory in the next election.
The Liberals are already taking aim at the proposal and dispatched Attorney General Chris Bentley to the convention in Markham, Ont., to slam the idea.
"I think Ontarians will want to know why any purported future leader of Ontario would want to undermine protections for human rights," Bentley said.
"After all, they started under a Progressive Conservative leader, they continued under 40-odd years of Progressive Conservatives."
More than 40,000 party members were eligible to vote for a new leader last Sunday and Thursday, using preferential ballots that list each voter's second and third choice candidates, if any.
It was a one-member, one-vote election, but party rules dictated that all 107 ridings were weighted equally to a maximum of 100 points.
Hillier was dropped from the ballot after finishing last in the first round of counting with only 1,013 votes. His votes were re-distributed according to his supporters' second choice, but it wasn't enough to tip the scales in either Klees or Hudak's favour.
Elliott's supporters ended up crowning Hudak after she was eliminated in the second count with a third-place finish of 2,903 votes.
In his farewell speech, Tory urged the candidates to put any differences aside and rally behind the new leader, but warned them not to forget about their tradition of caring for society's most vulnerable.
"We must not, as a party or as individual Conservatives, look like we are trying to narrow the definition of what a Progressive Conservative is, or who can be a Progressive Conservative," he said.
"It is just as much a Conservative principle to fight for minority rights and for equality of opportunity, as it is to fight for lower taxes."
Bill Davis, who ruled the province for nearly 14 years as premier, urged the party to find a way to resolve their differences in a speech that elicited both laughter and tears.
But he also reminded them that the Tory bloodline includes compassion.
"I'm not going to get into a philosophical discussion - I always leave that up to the candidates - except to remind us all of this," said Davis, 79.
"Part of the 42 years, part of the time that Ernie and Michael were there, there was still at the very root of the Progressive Conservative party the knowledge we wanted to give good government, we wanted to see the economy work, but we had a very specific responsibility as Ontarians and Canadians to look after those people who legitimately could not look after themselves."
The convention included a glowing tribute to Tory and his sometimes rocky term as leader of the party.
Davis, Tory's political hero, praised his protege as "the best premier Ontario never had."
Party members lauded Tory's decency and integrity, and the fact that he eliminated the party's $10 million debt after becoming leader in 2004.
His hold on the party reins began to crumble after his controversial promise to extend public funding to religious schools tanked with voters in the 2007 election, leading his party to one of its worst defeats ever.
Many insiders blamed Tory for the loss and the internal grumblings grew when he couldn't find anyone in his caucus to step aside to give him the chance for a seat in the legislature.
After more than a year of wandering in the political wilderness, Tory got his shot at a March byelection in Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock, but was defeated by Liberal Rick Johnson.
Provincial Tory Norm Miller, son of former leader Frank Miller, praised Tory for his generosity and warmth.
He took pains to call each of his caucus colleagues and wish them a merry Christmas from a tent in Africa where he was vacationing, Miller said.
A man of "character" and "compassion," Tory talked to families in Caledonia - the site of a three-year aboriginal occupation - and even stayed overnight to better understand their concerns, he added.
Tory's daughter, Susan, joked that her father's post-leader routine included hanging out at home, watching soaps and eating junk food. The two embraced after her speech, with Tory wiping tears from his eyes.
He is currently hosting a weekly talk radio show, but has left the door open to running again to be Toronto's mayor.
Former Conservative premier Ernie Eves and federal cabinet ministers John Baird, Peter Van Loan and Peter MacKay were also spotted at the event in Markham, north of Toronto.
