Will Scarborough byelection depend on flip flop on sex-education?

Going too close?

A new poll suggested that the  provincial byelection in the riding of Scarborough-Rouge River is too close to call.According to Mainstreet Research, Progressive Conservative candidate Raymond Cho has a five-point lead over Liberal candidate Piragal Thiru – 35 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively.

Neethan Shan, who is representing the NDP, is in distant third with 18 per cent. The Green Party has nominated Priyan De Silva, who is in fourth place with three per cent.

Seventeen per cent of those asked said they were undecided.However, with the margin or error, the race remains a tight one between the Liberals and the PCs.

“It looks like this race is going to come down to the wire – and ultimately to the party with the strongest get-out-the-vote operation,” David Valentin, executive vice-president at Mainstreet, said in a statement. The poll surveyed 578 eligible voters by phone on Sunday and Monday. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.08 per cent, 19 times out of 20. Valentin said it’s unknown how PC Leader Patrick Brown’s reversals on the sex-ed curriculum will affect support in the riding.

Ontario’s Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown has said that  his changing position on the Liberal government’s sex-ed curriculum may cost him the byelection in the Toronto riding of Scarborough Rouge River.

A campaign letter distributed last week, just days before the byelection, said a Progressive Conservative government would “scrap the controversial changes to sex ed” if Brown wins the 2018 provincial election. On Monday, Brown admitted that letter was a “mistake.”

“I realize this may cost me the byelection in Scarborough-Rouge River because much of the opposition was on this issue,” Brown told a TV program. “But I don’t want to win a byelection on false pretenses. If I am premier, I am not going to be scrapping sex education.,” he added.

Brown declined to say whether or not he actually wrote the letter that was sent out to constituents in”