Tory Turmoil Lingers Yet!

The Randy Hillier/Ontario Landlowner led coup may be spreading:

M-P-P Steve Clark is downplaying reports last week suggesting Randy Hiller was working to stage a Landowner takeover with the Leeds-Grenville and Carleton-Mississippi Mills tories.

He echoes leader Tim Hudak’s statement that the party is united against the premier.

A bit of back story here: when Clark ran for the nomination in MPP Bob Runciman's old riding, one of his competiters was OLA member Shawn Carmichael, best known for selling uninspected eggs on his chicken-farm. Apparently, there is some bad blood between these two men, as Carmichael's application to run was rejected by the provincial party executive, which led to complaints about the process:

Carmichael said the local PC executive told him he could not hand in memberships at the riding office on Friday. He said he was also not informed that voting would begin at noon Saturday and not 2 p.m. as had been stated on an earlier announcement.

Frankly, though, I'm not sure I see much to these rumours. Clark has already won the nomination, and been elected to the legislature, so I don't see how taking over his riding exec (which seems to be the gist of the rumour) would accomplish much.

In any case, there was some fun, Tory Turmoil related goings-on at Queen's Park yesterday:

Tory Norm Sterling was taunted over his accusations that colleague Randy Hillier is trying to oust him from the Ottawa-area seat the party veteran has held for more than 30 years.

"You sleeping with one eye open, Norm?" a Liberal backbencher yelled.

"Hillier for leader!" chanted Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli.

Ah! That such things might be.