I tune into The Agenda with Steve Paikin.

The panel of four PC die-hards – including Newmarket’s Maddie Di Muccio - pick over the entrails of the once mighty, but now humbled, Progressive Conservatives.

Di Muccio wastes no time in sticking the knife into Tim Hudak who – for reasons never fully explained - vetoed her candidacy in Newmarket-Aurora. She says Hudak “went rogue on the Party”. It wasn’t a grassroots campaign but one directed by “the management”. She says bluntly: “The Leader blew it.”

Di Muccio took a half page advertisement in the Era Newspaper on 10 April 2014 denouncing Hudak for blackballing her. We must presume she paid for this out of her own pocket - unlike the earlier one denouncing the Mayor for his fondness for tax increases.

The discussion now touches on Ontario’s changing demographics. She says her nemesis, Frank Klees, was offered an outreach role to connect the PCs with minority communities but he turned it down. She doesn’t elaborate.

For much of the time Di Muccio is crowded out of the conversation. But she comes quite animated at the very end when Paikin asks who the next Leader of the PCs should be.

Di Muccio wants:

“Somebody who is dynamic. It should be a woman. Someone who can communicate and connect emotionally with people.”

I wonder who she has in mind?


Andrea is sticking around

While Tim Hudak wanders off alone into the forest, the NDP leader, Andrea Horwath, proclaims the election result is some kind of victory.

She says it is the best result for the New Democrats in a quarter of a century. "The numbers tell us that we achieved the highest seat total for our Party in a general election in Ontario since 1990."

She aims to lead the ONDP into a third Provincial Election, four years away.

She brazenly announces her decision before meeting her caucus for the first time since the election, a move clearly designed to snuff-out any opposition before it can take root.

She tells us there is a leadership convention in November. If people aren’t happy, they can do something about it then.

If only.