Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #13, Patrick Brown

Patrick Brown

Queen’s Park

13 The second most powerful ­person in Queen’s Park has a maniacal work ethic that strikes fear into the hearts of his opponents. He propelled himself from a backbench in Parliament to the head of the provincial PCs by getting some 40,000 Ontarians to sign up for party memberships. That’s a lot of door-knocking. He has gradually ­softened his ardent political stances on gay marriage and sex ed—in July, for instance, he became the first sitting PC leader to walk with his delegation in the Toronto Pride Parade. That ideological malleability may help him reunite his fractured party and refill its debt-­burdened coffers while at the same time recapturing some of the centrist voters who were too put off by Tim Hudak to vote blue last time around.

Friends in High Places:

Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India; hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky.

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