Brother of Rob Ford Elected to Lead Conservatives in Ontario

OTTAWA, Ontario — Doug Ford, the brother of the former Toronto mayor who confessed to crack cocaine use and public intoxication, was narrowly elected Saturday as leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives, the opposition party.

Ford has embraced the same populist, right-of-center approach to politics as his brother Rob Ford, who died two years ago after treatment for a rare form of cancer. After the brother became mayor in 2010, Doug Ford successfully campaigned to take his former seat on the Toronto City Council.

But the two men diverged in many other ways. Frustrated by political life, Doug Ford left his only elected post after one four-year term and an unsuccessful bid to succeed the brother as mayor. Ford mostly ran the label business that had been founded by their father, also named Doug, who was a Progressive Conservative member of Ontario’s legislature.

There have never been any suggestions of drug or excessive alcohol use by Doug Ford. The Globe and Mail, a Toronto newspaper, has reported that he sold hashish for several years during the 1980s, but Ford has denied that report.

Although Ford can be as vocal as his brother was, he does not appear to be as comfortable with public life. He hurried through a prepared victory speech Saturday night without making much of an effort to look up at the audience in Markham, Ontario, a Toronto suburb.

“We have a lot to do in a very short amount of time,” Ford said before declining to answer questions from reporters. “I will get our party back on track. We will put a platform forward that will speak to every Ontarian.”

The Conservatives in Canada’s most populous province needed a new leader because Patrick Brown quit after a Canadian television network reported on sexual misconduct accusations against him. Brown recently filed a defamation lawsuit against the broadcaster, CTV, which has said it will vigorously defend its reporting.

Like many of the events that have followed Brown’s departure — including his brief entry into the race to fill his spot — little went smoothly for the Conservatives on Saturday. Party members voted mainly online to rank their preferred candidates, and the leader was picked through a complex points system that allocated the ballot results among electoral districts.

A protest by his opponent, Christine Elliott, the party’s former deputy leader, about the accuracy of the point allocations turned what was planned as a late afternoon announcement into a late evening affair. In the end, Ford appeared to have defeated Elliott by only a small margin.

Elliott and Caroline Mulroney, another candidate and the daughter of the former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, did not join Ford on the stage during his victory speech.

Before Brown quit as party leader, the Conservatives had appeared poised to seize power in Ontario’s provincial assembly from the Liberals in a vote scheduled for June 7.

It is unclear, however, if Ford’s populist message — which includes opposing federally mandated carbon taxes — will carry the party. That will not be his only hurdle. Being so closely associated with Toronto is not a plus in other parts of the province, where the country’s largest city often prompts envy and resentment.