My point is that the Ontario PCs have been the way they are since at least the mid-90s
Not quite. John Tory, who in some respects is the de facto leader of the opposition to Ford, was the PC leader for one election. He was succeeded by Hudak, who was indeed a right winger, and who lost two elections. The PCs then chose Patrick Brown who is another Red Tory. After Brown was forced out, Ford managed to win the leadership without a lead either in member votes or constituencies, due to the PC point system. If those had counted, the winner would have been Christine Elliott, who is known to the right wingers as Christine Elliott Trudeau. So it's more a matter of two factions ebbing and flowing.
Thanks for filling in some of my blanks on Ontario politics. Still, though, acknowleding that the Ontario Tories are not a monolith, I think it's safe to say that, examined as a whole, they are well to the right of what they were during the heyday of the Big Blue Machine. And that this shift was accomplished with no significant input from the Reform Party.
And one thing...
My recollection of Patrick Brown was that he wasn't a Red Tory at all, and wikipedia seems to back me up on this(eg. endorsed by Campaign Life, supported re-opening debates on same-sex marriage and abortion). Though I gather that, now at the municipal level, he's been pushing a few anti-poverty measures.