Ontario Progressive Party leader Patrick Brown continues to steadily transition from shades of blue to shades of red as the province approaches the next election campaign in just over a year's time (I dropped "Conservative" from his title since Brown doesn't seem to want the association for the time being).  As I've written before ("True Blue Conservatives Have a Backbone and Don't Kowtow to Liberal Press"), Patrick Brown is petrified of being hung by the media like his predecessor Tim Hudak, and for good reason.  Hudak was a shoe-in to win the last election, but then one wrong blurting of his true intentions and his practically guaranteed ascendence disappeared into thin air.

So on the one hand Brown's chameleon-like tendencies make sense.  If he didn't blend in with the leftist nature of the majority of the Ontarian electorate he would likely lose (what a sad and bleak reality).

So abandoning the so-cons appears necessary for the so-called conservative leader in his bid to defeat Wynne.  But did he need to be so completely fulsome in his embrace of progressive leftists?

Flip-flopping to now supporting a carbon tax and fully endorsing Wynne's sex-ed curriculum were both shocking betrayals for Ontarian conservatives to swallow.

Why wouldn't Brown stay opposed to any sort of carbon pricing, instead explaining how its just another government scheme to take more money from Ontarian pockets, further crippling constituents buying power and pushing away businesses?

Brown was obviously following where the wind was blowing.  Polls last year revealed most Canadians supported a carbon tax, but once the increased cost of living from cap-and-trade hit already-hosed Ontarians purses and wallets, the weather vane abruptly swung the other way.  As soon as Ontarians saw a rise in the cost at the pump the good-will sentiment of the zeitgeist in combating climate change went up in smoke.  Now Brown's stuck defending a carbon tax most Ontarians will see as synonymous with the Liberals' cap-and-trade scheme that hit them at the pump (and all other purchases invisibly), instead of having the more popular position he held in the first place.  The Progressives were too knee-jerk reactionary.

And then there was the recent botched rollout of the Ontario Progressive's hydro plan.  After NDP leader Andrea Horwath unveiled an unrealistic plan to buy back Hydro One and the Liberals responded with a re-amortization and an increased debt load in their "fair hydro plan" to give Ontarians quick rate relief, Brown's Progressives scrambled to release a plan of their own.  But at the last minute they nixed the press conference, deciding to again wait for a policy conference at year's end.

Obviously the Progressives are paralyzed with fear in actually making known what they want to do with the hydro mess, or anything for that matter.  There's no easy fix for an energy file in tatters, however the fiscal conservative's answer would be one of restraint and explaining to Ontarians that constituents will have to shoulder the burden of the costly blunders and outright graft perpetrated in the last decade by tightening their belt buckles.  But most Ontarians don't want to face the music, so expect a fiscally immodest proposal from the Progressives when they finally gather the courage to announce their position.

As National Post columnist Ashley Csanady put it on the latest episode of the podcast Armchair Quarterbacks: "No one really pays attention to Queen's Park between elections outside of hardcore political watchers.  So it's actually kind of a smart game that they're playing right now, keeping their cards close to their chest."

This is true to a certain point, but eventually Brown has to show what he's holding, without marking up the cards with new symbols.  And a lot of conservatives are already watching Brown closely and are unimpressed or downright furious with his turncoat behaviour.

The Rebel was outside of the Progressive's riding nomination on April 9 when the event was supposedly cancelled by the local riding association only to instead be held by the party so they could handpick their own red candidate, blocking the favoured candidate of the riding's conservative members.  This despicable backroom dealing just added to a growing trend of the Progressive Party insiders rigging the nomination processes to put in former Liberal members.

Several true blue conservatives disillusioned by the betrayal gave interviews to The Rebel reporter outside the meeting, and the Progressive Party's top brass got so anxious they called the cops.  Thankfully we don't live in a police state yet, so the muscle didn't do anything other than stand guard as disillusioned (former?) members voiced their disgust.

One angered member's words were prophetic: "This is a travesty.  And that takes a lot for me to say because I am no fan of the Liberal government by any stretch of the imagination.  They will ruin our futurethey've already ruined our future.  But watching what went on today, this is amateur hour.  If it's going to be amateur hour I'd rather be with the devil I know than the devil I don't."

Does the Progressive Party of Ontario really think it can out progressive the Liberals or NDP?  And do they think their share of the progressive vote will make up for the undoubted hit they'll take from alienated conservative Ontarians deciding to abstain or cast a protest vote?  Brown risks fracturing the party in two.

Does Brown think progressive Canadian media, like the Toronto Star, are going to forget his former record come election time and give him friendly coverage?  If Brown doesn't soon remember what colour team he plays on he might just miss the empty net next year, blowing an even more fortuitous opportunity than that of Hudak.

Written by Graeme C. Gordon