Young Windsor Tories glad Patrick Brown resigned as leader

As a young, female Conservative on campus, University of Windsor student Maggie McAuley said it's hard to find people who share similar views. 

"You're seen as being — as I've been told by an MP — 'brainwashed,'" she said. "Windsor is obviously a very left-wing city. People tend to vote NDP and that's especially present on campus."

McAuley is a member of the University of Windsor Conservatives. The group's Interim president, Chase Tribble, and McAuley gave some perspective on how the area's young Tories are reacting to the allegations levied against Patrick Brown.

Both students agree with Brown's decision to step down as a leader and stay on as MPP. By doing that, they say it lends some credibility to his innocence and allows him to defend himself.

"You're innocent until proven guilty. We need to have that respect for our legal system, but at the same time a leader of the party with sexual assault allegations is incredibly, incredibly disgusting," said McAuley.

For the best

Both McAuley and Tribble admit that they were not supportive of Brown as party leader before this incident.

"I have been a very, very vocal critic of Patrick Brown since very early on in his leadership," said McAuley. "I think he ran on a campaign that he then abandoned and threw the people who voted for him under the bus."

McAuley said that Brown was extremely divisive for the party, saying he was not a leader, but he was "a dictator of the party." 

"If we could take this new leadership, which will get a lot of hype and attention, and focus it towards the campaign, I think it's a lot more likely that we'll win versus Patrick Brown," said Tribble. 

He said it's going to be hard for the party to come back from what happened, but said "nothing is impossible" — even for voters in Windsor.