{"id":20020,"date":"2018-03-07T15:56:35","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T20:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20020"},"modified":"2018-03-14T14:56:46","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T18:56:46","slug":"elliott-and-ford-make-final-pitches-to-aurora-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/elliott-and-ford-make-final-pitches-to-aurora-voters\/","title":{"rendered":"Elliott and Ford make final pitches to Aurora voters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re running in a dead heat to be the next leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party and frontrunners Christine Elliott and Doug Ford spent part of the final week of the campaign making their final pitches to local voters.<br \/>\nWith the winner set to be announced after a vote tally in Markham on Saturday, both Ms. Elliott and Mr. Ford made direct appeals to voters in Newmarket-Aurora and Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill, each appearing to packed houses of supporters and party faithful.<br \/>\nThe duo are in a tight race to replace former leader Patrick Brown as party leader ahead of the June 7 Provincial election, a race which also includes York-Simcoe PC candidate Caroline Mulroney and conservative activist Tanya Granic Allen.<br \/>\nBrown, who resigned last month, briefly entered the race to replace himself but bowed out less than a week later.<br \/>\nMs. Elliott was first to hit Aurora, meeting with neighbours at Aw, Shucks, alongside Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill PC candidate Michael Parsa who has endorsed her leadership bid.<br \/>\nThere, she touted her experience in \u201cstanding up\u201d to Premier Kathleen Wynne at Queen\u2019s Park.<br \/>\n\u201cWe don\u2019t have time for a leader in training,\u201d she said.<br \/>\nMeanwhile, on Monday night, Doug Ford was welcomed to Oakview Terrace, just south of Leslie Street and Bloomington Road by Newmarket-Aurora PC candidate Charity McGrath, who has endorsed the former Toronto councillor.<br \/>\n\u201cWe\u2019re going to sanitize Queen\u2019s Park,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to make sure we sanitize our own party as well.\u201d<br \/>\nFor more on their respective pitches to Aurora voters, please see Pages 12 and 13.<\/p>\n<a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-facebook nolightbox\" data-provider=\"facebook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" 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voters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2018-03-08-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5cU","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 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