Youngest-ever Ontario MPP in nomination battle to run for PCs in next year’s election

GRIMSBY, Ont. — The youngest-ever member of Ontario’s legislature is to find out tonight if he will represent the Progressive Conservatives in next year’s provincial election.

Sam Oosterhoff, 19, was elected Nov. 17 in a byelection in Niagara West-Glanbrook, previously held by former party leader Tim Hudak.

He secured that nomination by defeating party president Rick Dykstra and regional councillor Tony Quirk — who is again challenging Oosterhoff for this nomination, despite having helped run the teen’s byelection campaign.

PC party members in the new Niagara West riding — one of several being redistributed for 2018 — will chose their candidate for the general election when they vote between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown has said he is supporting Oosterhoff, as he is backing all of his caucus members in any contested nomination battles.

Oosterhoff landed at the legislature making waves not only for being so young, but also for espousing social conservative views at a time when Brown was battling factions of party supporters and other members of his caucus in an effort to brand the Tories as inclusive and socially progressive.

Brown publicly split with social conservative elements of the party after he flip-flopped on a pledge to repeal the Liberal government’s updated sex-education curriculum.

He expressed displeasure that caucus member Monte McNaughton continues to court sex-ed opponents, another doesn’t believe in evolution, and a third was sent for sensitivity training after making mysogynistic “jokes.”

Oosterhoff has declared he is “100 per cent pro life,” campaigned against the sex-ed curriculum, and opposed a new law that gives more rights to same-sex parents. He was sworn in the day after a vote on that law, avoiding a potential clash with his brand new caucus, but since then has mostly flown under the radar at the legislature.