[LINK] "Meet Ontario's youngest ever MPP – and PC leader Patrick Brown's latest headache"

[rfmcdonald]

NOW Toronto's Michael Coren writes about how the election of Sam Oosterhoff, at 19 the youngest MPP ever elected, bodes ill for the coherence of the Progressive Conservatives.

Social conservatives in Ontario PC party ranks are rejoicing.

Long convinced that powerful special interests have conspired to silence them, they now have a miniature saviour in 19-year-old Sam Oosterhoff, the new PC MPP for Niagara West-Glanbrook in Ontario’s Bible belt.

The university student shocked the party establishment when he defeated PC party president Rick Dykstra, a good friend and chosen candidate of Ontario PC leader Patrick Brown, to win the nomination last month amid blowback over Brown's flip-flop on the province's ex-ed curriculum. Now he has won the seat vacated by former PC leader Tim Hudak in a one of two by-elections held Thursday, November 17. (The governing Liberals held onto Ottawa-Vanier.)

While Brown sang the young man’s praises shortly after his victory was announced last night – Brown described Oosterhoff's win as "impressive" – the truth is the last thing the PC leader wants is another social conservative in his caucus. Those closest to Brown confide they're deeply concerned the new boy will not remain on message and cause the party more embarrassment over sex-ed, abortion and gay rights as the leader tries to tack a more mainstream political course for the PCs. As one Liberal insider told me, “It’s only a matter of time before Sam Oosterhoff or one of his supporters says something extreme.”

To be sure, Oosterhoff's nomination win is part of a greater, deeper division in the Ontario PC party between the mainstream and the Christian right.

Oosterhoff is himself firmly entrenched in the latter. A member of the Spring Creek Canadian Reformed Church in Vineland, he embraces a strict Calvinist theology that is far to the right of most other Reformed Christians in Canada. That’s his absolute right, of course, but his refusal to work on Sundays could be an issue, as could his resolute stance against abortion for any reason and vehement opposition to the new sex ed curriculum, which has already brought him into direct conflict with his leader.