In his first major speech to party faithful since becoming leader on May 9, Patrick Brown set out a vision for a PC Party that would embrace its past achievements on progressive social policies, push for business-friendly fiscal policies, and be cooperative with political opponents.

"It’s important that we show Ontarians that we are ready, willing and able to work with others," Brown said Wednesday night to a room of 1,040 at the party's annual Toronto Leader's Dinner.

"These are the qualities that they expect in a government and the ones I want our party to be known for in the coming years."

Brown said that "as PCs, we’ll support what is in the best interest of Ontario, regardless of whether that idea came from our party, the Liberals or the NDP."

He also rattled off a list of past achievements from PC governments that included universal suffrage, universal healthcare, environment protection for waterways and forests, and the construction of "highways that cross our province and the subways that tunnel underground."

"We should never forget that Ontario’s history is the Progressive Conservative party’s history," Brown said.

The speech, which contained the mandatory Brown references to both hockey and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, outlined three policy priorities: building transportation infrastructure, lowering hydro rates and reducing red tape.

A clear theme of the evening was community outreach, as Brown opened his speech with greetings in nine different languages. Immediately following the speech, religious blessings were given from Hindi, Jewish, Christian and Muslim spiritual leaders.

One of the first major staffing decisions Brown made after becoming leader was to hire a beefed-up outreach staff, including dedicated staff for particular ethnic communities.

During Brown's speech, the party sent out a release saying it had already raised $1.5 million in the five weeks he's been leader.

Meanwhile, the MPP that Brown beat to become leader wasn't in attendance at the dinner. In fact, Christine Elliott hasn't been seen at Queen's Park since losing the leadership contest.

"While she’s not able to be here tonight because she is taking some well-deserved family time out of the country, I’d also like to acknowledge Christine Elliott and her very significant contributions to our party," Brown said during the speech.

Brown stakes out moderate line for PC Party in major fundraising speech

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