Patrick Brown spent the summer putting to work the canvassing and campaign organization skills that saw him beat out caucus favourite Christine Elliott for the party leadership.Roy MacGregor/The Globe and Mail
Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown has won a seat in the Ontario legislature in a by-election four months after winning the party leadership.
Longtime Progressive Conservative MPP Garfield Dunlop resigned his Simcoe North seat this summer so Brown could run.
Brown won the party leadership in May and resigned his federal seat in the nearby riding of Barrie.
During the leadership race Dunlop was one of Brown's most outspoken critics, but struck a much more conciliatory tone when resigning his seat for the leader, and endorsed him in Simcoe North.
Brown spent the summer putting to work the canvassing and campaign organization skills that saw him beat out caucus favourite Christine Elliott for the party leadership.
Early results showed Brown garnered more than 50 per cent of the vote, beating Liberal candidate Fred Larsen, who lost to Dunlop in the previous two elections, and NDP candidate Elizabeth Van Houtte — a professor of social work at Lakehead University.