[It was allegations of sexual misconduct, not an alcohol addiction, that led to the resignation of Economic Development Minister Jim Wilson, according to multiple media reports.

Global News reports that the allegations were brought forward by a male staffer at Queen’s Park and Premier Doug Ford learned of them on Friday — the day Wilson resigned.

A statement from Ford’s office late Friday stated that Wilson resigned from cabinet and the Tory caucus “to seek treatment for addiction issues” related to alcohol.

Wilson had been Ford’s most senior minister and was a PC MPP for 28 years. Back in July 2014, he was elected interim party leader after former leader Tim Hudak resigned. Wilson held that role until Patrick Brown took over as leader in May the following year.

A report by Global News cites multiple sources also claiming Andrew Kimber, the premier’s executive director of issues management and legislative affairs, resigned Friday over allegations of sexually inappropriate text messages sent to a female Queen’s Park staffer.

Bad day for Federal and provincial conservatives in Ontario.

Not only did the federal Tories lose one of their most senior MPs over sexual images but today it was revealed that Doug Ford lost not one but two senior personnel over sexual misconduct. The Ford government originally tried to claim cabinet member left to seek treatment for alcohol addiction but the truth always comes out, and now Doug’s office refuses to talk about any of it.

Doesn’t sound like an incident 20 years ago since apparently he’s gone for treatment. As for the severity of their alleged one can only guess but for Doug Ford of all people to jettison someone that senior one would think it’s a little more serious than a tasteless joke.

Let’s also not forget the circumstances that lead Ford to become party leader in the first place. It would be pretty hypocritical for the PC party to jettison Patrick Brown over his allegations just before the election and then ignore and whitewash something much worse after the get elected.

The Ontario government says it is increasing the number of seats in the legislature required to achieve official party status.

Progressive Conservative House Leader Todd Smith says the new threshold — to be laid out in the fall economic statement later this week — will be 10 per cent of the house, or 12 seats, up from the current eight.

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Smith says the move is meant to provide clarity and denies it is an attempt to stymie the Liberals, who fell one seat short of official party status in the spring election.

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Slipping below the threshold meant the Liberals lost funds for research, staff salaries and other purposes and can only operate in the legislature in a limited fashion.

The Liberals have asked the government to grant them some accommodations, including funding, similar to what New Democrats received when they failed to achieve party status in 2003.

Interim Liberal leader John Fraser says the government's decision to instead raise the threshold is needlessly divisive and disrespectful to the roughly 1.1 million people who voted for Liberals.

"It's thwarting democracy and it's also what bullies do," Fraser said.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4903705

Dirty tricks

Why have the rule at all then?

"It's thwarting democracy and it's also what bullies do," Fraser said.

What does this have to do with money. Nothing changes with money either way.

Also note they didn’t change it “to reflect a larger number of seats” they changed the formula altogether Previously you need 8 seats for party status. Now they changed it to 10% of seats.

This has everything to do with money.

Not having party status means no money for caucus offices. No salary bonuses for performing certain roles, such as house leader, caucus chair, or party whip.

Also, parties get $2.71/vote. At 1,124,218 votes that's just over 3 million they don't receive as a party.

They didn't earn party status either way. Just be honest with the public. Don't get all high-and-mighty and talk about this being a threat to democracy....total crap.

Democracy put them in a position of non-party status.

What does this have to do with money. Nothing changes with money either way.

Also note they didn’t change it “to reflect a larger number of seats” they changed the formula altogether Previously you need 8 seats for party status. Now they changed it to 10% of seats.

This is just typical kick-a-man-when-he’s-down, mean spirited conservatives up to their usual low-blow partisanship . It’s unnecessary and I think it’s dirty politics.

Did you feel that way when the liberals refused to give party status to the NDP? And that Wynne lied about it after the election?

Sorry, this is partisanship if I've ever seen it. I don't like Ford, I think he's a dick and he's made a lot of stupid decisions already. This isn't something to get worked up over. It was lowered by Harris because of less seats, and as the seats has grown it makes sense to raise it back up to it's previous levels. By making this a percentage, this should happen automatically, so in the future if number of seats change, it doesn't need to go through legislature to change, it just happens automatically.