[2]The ad resulted in Progressive Conservative candidate Chris Hodgson quickly gaining support at the expense of McCrae, and ultimately winning the by-election.
[2] Several federal Liberal MPs, including Jean Augustine, Barry Campbell, Bill Graham, Shaughnessy Cohen and Hedy Fry, intervened to encourage McLeod not to withdraw support, to no avail.
[2] Rae ultimately permitted a free vote on the bill within his caucus, albeit with the warning that he would not support the dissenting MPPs if they ran for re-election in the 1995 election.
Aloysius Ambrozic, the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto stated his objections to the bill granting same-sex couples equal standing to opposite-sex ones, although he insisted that he did not oppose protecting the rights of individual homosexual people.
[2] Don Pennell, the leader of the minor socially-conservative Family Coalition Party of Ontario, was quoted as saying that "homosexuals may choose to behave in a certain way but it is wrong for the government to legally sanction and support these choices.
[10] According to Toronto Sun columnist Christie Blatchford: It all came down, in the end, to dozens of the Queen's Park security guards donning rubber gloves and breaking open a duffle bag full of billy clubs.
[S]ome of them had been hit by billy clubs, a couple had been dragged away, some had been pushed down the stairs ...[10]Over the next two hours, crowds of protestors began to gather in both Toronto and Ottawa and marched through the streets in what the LGBT newspaper Xtra!
[5] McLeod's decision to withdraw the party's support of Bill 167 led to ongoing criticism, with activists and opposing politicians branding her as a "flip-flopper" who could not be trusted to keep a campaign promise.
Even Murphy, who should seemingly have been spared by his status as a champion of LGBT civil rights in the most broadly LGBT-friendly electoral district in the province, was himself defeated by PC candidate Al Leach.