Niagara West-Glanbrook MPP Tim Hudak was elected the new leader of the provincial Progressive Conservative Party Saturday afternoon. After three ballots at the party convention in Markham, Hudak became the 21st leader of the party.

Hudak had extended his lead over second place candidate Frank Klees in a second ballot Saturday afternoon. After the final ballot was counted, the defeated Klees asked the result be made unanimous for Hudak, according to the convention website.

Hudak, who had been favoured by many to win, won the first ballot by nearly 500 votes. Last place candidate Randy Hiller was dropped from the race and his votes redistributed to the remaining candidates of Klees, Hudak and Christine Elliott based on the second choice of voters.

Hudak won the second ballot with 4.128 votes, while Klees earned 3,299. As the last place candidate, Elliott will drop out with her 2,903 votes being distributed to Klees and Hudak based on the third choice of voters.

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Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke MPP John Yakabuski says he’s welcomes the close of the Progressive Conservative leadership race and is looking forward to fighting the 2011 Ontario provincial election under the leadership of Tim Hudak.

Mr. Hudak, 41, beat rivals Frank Klees, Randy Hillier and Christine Elliott Saturday afternoon to take over the provincial Tory party. More than 40,000 party members in Ontario’s 107 ridings were eligible to vote. Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke voted for Mr. Hudak on the first and second ballots. Results for the third ballot were unavailable at press time. Speaking from Markham, Mr. Yakabsuki told the Observer he expected the vote to go to three ballots.

“It was a spirited leadership contest with a lot of issues and a vision brought forward by four different but committed candidates,” Mr. Yakabuski said moments after Mr. Hudak delivered his acceptance speech. “Nobody expects coronations at these things.”

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Ontario’s Progressive Conservative party took a right turn Saturday as it elected Niagara-area MPP Tim Hudak — a man who has promised a return to middle-class values and plain talk conservatism — as its new leader.

Hudak, 41, whose campaign slogan was “Right for Ontario,” won the leadership in a third-ballot decision against fellow MPP Frank Klees.

Hudak wasted little time in fixing his sights on the province’s Liberal government.

“Dalton, your days are numbered,” he said, addressing Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty. “It’s time for a change. … We must take Ontario down an entirely different path than we are on. Ontario is dead last in economic growth.”

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With one hand holding his daughter Miller and the other shaking that of former premier Mike Harris, Tim Hudak worked his way through the crowd moments before he was announced yesterday as the next leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative party.

“Dalton McGuinty, your days are numbered,” Hudak, 41, said to a cheering throng of several hundred supporters at the Markham Conference Centre. “There are only 832 days until the next election.”

The MPP from Niagara West-Glanbrook said he’d heard a similar theme across the province during the four-month campaign to replace John Tory as PC Leader.

“It’s time for a change. Let’s make Ontario great again.”

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While the Tories were giddy at electing a new leader, they have some tough tasks ahead.

First, the party cannot haul out the old hot button issues like tax cuts and hope they will touch a nerve.

In 1995, people were overtaxed. They needed cuts. The next election is in 2011 and the issue will be jobs. People with no income don’t care about income tax cuts. They do care about the harmonized sales tax the Liberals are slapping on every necessity of life.

That and the shocking eHealth boondoggle, with millions going to fatcat consultants as ordinary workers were laid off, will also lose the Liberals votes

Those people who voted Tory in vast numbers 15 years ago have matured — aged — if you will. They’re looking at a manufacturing sector that has been destroyed.

They’ve had their life savings decimated by an economic meltdown. People who thought they had a pension suddenly find it has evaporated.

As governments pour billions of dollars into bailouts for private corporations, the little people — the ones who paid for the bailouts — have lost out big time.

As Hudak puts the Champagne bottles out in the recycling today, he’s is going to look at the road ahead — and wonder what he’s got himself into.

He has a little more than two years to get the party organized, to find candidates, to get a platform.

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Tim Hudak, who campaigned as being “Right For Ontario,” proved himself right for Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives.

Hudak, 41, yesterday won a third-ballot victory at the party’s leadership convention in Markham and immediately vowed to steer the Conservatives back in the right-wing direction of his mentor, former premier Mike Harris.

The victory by the Niagara West-Glanbrook MPP ends seven years of Conservative flirtation with the political centre under former premier Ernie Eves, leader from 2002 to 2004, and John Tory, who led from 2004 until his surprise defeat in a March 5 byelection in Haliburton.

“We must take Ontario down an entirely different path than the one we’re on,” Hudak told hundreds of cheering partisans following his win over MPPs Frank Klees, Christine Elliott, and Randy Hillier with 5,606 electoral votes of 10,250 up for grabs in 107 ridings.

“Our party will be clearly on the side of middle-class families, speaking to their hopes and dreams and as tough as today’s challenges are, I know that Ontario’s best days are yet to come,” said the former Harris and Eves cabinet minister.

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Friends and family describe him as a “regular guy.” He drives a black, four-door Chevy Avalanche pickup, loves mountain biking on the Niagara Escarpment and cooking – particularly with his two food smokers, one electric and one a “bullet” charcoal model. Carolina-style pulled pork is a specialty, but his trim physique suggests there’s enough exercise to burn off the calories.

Kicking back, he might be drinking a beer, a Scotch or a glass of Niagara wine. His TV is on either CNN or sports, particularly football, a passion he’s followed in a Queen’s Park NFL pool. Hudak was a regular Buffalo Bills season ticket holder until 2007, a busy year with the election and Miller’s birth. He typically goes to bed in time to read for a half hour – he prefers political biographies – before drifting off.

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National Post – Emily Senger

Markham Progressive Conservative Party leadership hopeful Randy Hillier has been dropped from the race after he came fourth in the first round of ballot counting at the PC Leadership Convention in Markham, Ontario today. After the first count, which was released late this morning, Tim Hudak is in first place with about 35 per cent of votes, followed by Frank Klees, with Christine Elliott in third.

No candidate has yet to get the more than 50 per cent of votes needed to become the new leader. PC Party members voted on either Sunday or Thursday in their home ridings and were asked to rank the candidates in first, second and third place. Second-place ballots will now be counted, with the final result announced later this afternoon.

MPP Tim Hudak (Niagara West-Glanbrook) is narrowly leading after the first ballot in the Progressive Conservative leadership contest in Markham.

Hudak, 41, finished with 3,511 of 10,348 electoral votes cast from 107 ridings and maverick MPP Randy Hillier, 51, (Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington), who was fourth, has been eliminated from the next ballot, which will be announced around 2 p.m.

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Conservatives across Ontario find out today if Tim Hudak, the veteran MPP from Niagara, is the new leader of their party or if the job goes to one of his rivals.

A good part of politics happens to be timing,” Hudak said during a phone interview, reflecting on his 80-day campaign to become leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative party.

The 41-year-old politician has spent most of his adult life in public office. He was first elected in 1995 at the age of 27. Now, he’s the front-runner in the four-person race to replace John Tory, who resigned as party leader in March after failing to win a byelection in Lindsay. Tory ran there because he lost his own downtown Toronto seat in the 2007 general election.

A leadership campaign is a chance to put out where you, as a candidate, want to take the party and to run on your record as an MPP,” Hudak said.