Former MPP Christine Elliott says she has no doubts about her decision to run for the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.

“I feel very confident about this. It seems like very much the right thing to do and I feel like I’m the right candidate for it,” Elliott said Monday.

Speaking with CP24 in a sit-down interview, Elliott went a step further and said she’s running because she feels she’s the only one who can defeat the Ontario Liberals in June.

“I think it’s important right now that we have a leader that has experience. And of the candidates who have declared or are likely to declare, I’m the only one that has experience as an MPP,” she said. “I think with such a short time frame between now and the election in June, we need someone who can step right in and do the job and I’m ready to go now.”

Elliott declared her intention to run for the leadership with a short tweet last week: “I’m in!”

But since then, another high-profile candidate has jumped in too; lawyer Caroline Mulroney, whose father Brian Mulroney, served as prime minister. Mulroney also officially declared her candidacy on Twitter, sharing a video message from a Super Bowl party with family and supporters Sunday night.

That brings the number of declared candidates in the race to three, with former Toronto city councilor Doug Ford having already declared his intention to lead the party.

Elliott said that while Mulroney has a “brilliant future” and Ford has been a family friend for years, she’s nonetheless the only one in the race who has experience as an MPP.

“I think that for the leadership right now, I’m the person who’s ready to go,” she said.

Elliott served as the provincial representative for Whitby-Ajax from 2006 to 2015. This marks the third time that she has taken a run at the leadership of the party, with previous bids in 2009 and 2015.

After losing the leadership race to Patrick Brown in 2015, Elliott resigned her seat. The following year she was appointed to be Ontario’s first patient ombudsman. She resigned from that job last week in order to pursue her leadership bid.

“I think my time in the last two years has been very well spent concentrating on that because I know there are gaps,” Elliott said. “There’s some great work that’s being done, but there are also some gaps and I want to work on those gaps to make sure that patients and families get the care they need.”

In terms of how she’d like to win the leadership, Elliott said she plans to run a race that focuses on “ideas.”

She says she and Doug Ford have spoken and agreed to run a respectful race.

Brown stepped down as the party’s leader on Jan. 25, amid allegations of sexual misconduct by two women. He maintains that the allegations are untrue and the claims have not been proven in court. Still, he agreed to step down as he defends against them.

While the list of potential leadership candidates following Brown’s Jan. 25 resignation was long, it has shortened considerably in the past week, with a slew of potentials saying they won’t run. They include Lisa MacLeod, Rod Phillips and current interim leader Vic Fedeli.

Party members are expected to select a new leader on March 10.