Trailing Wynne makes last-minute plea
Liberal premier calls on supporters of other parties to help hold back surging Tories
With her party trailing in all but one of Ontario’s byelection races, Premier Kathleen Wynne appealed directly to “progressive” voters on Sunday during a rally for Ottawa South Liberal candidate John Fraser.
In a move that could later be judged as either desperation or a canny assessment of voters’ fears, the premier called on New Democrats and even Tory supporters to rally behind Fraser and hold off a Progressive Conservative party the Liberals say is intent on firing civil servants and eroding public institutions.
“We need every single person who’s thinking progressively, who’s thinking about the future, who’s aspiring to a positive, prosperous, fair Ontario,” Wynne told dozens of cheering Liberals.
“People who think like that need to be looking at our platform, even if they are traditionally NDP or Green or even Conservative,” she said.
It was a message Fraser echoed as he claimed voting for the NDP would help send a Tory to Toronto.
“A vote for the NDP in this close a race is going to help send someone to Queen’s Park who is going to help Tim Hudak fire thousands of teachers, fire nurses and not pay attention to the things that are important to families,” Fraser said.
But both the Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats scoffed at the Liberals’ latest pitch, with Tory Matt Young calling it a desperate cling to power and New Democrat Bronwyn Funiciello accusing Wynne of voter suppression.
“She knows full well that this election won’t change the balance of power, so urging strategic voting is an act of desperation and subverts democracy. The people of Ottawa South deserve to have their voices heard,” Funiciello said in a statement.
Voters in five Ontario ridings are casting ballots this week to elect new MPPs to replace Liberals who have stepped down over the past year.
Throughout the campaign, the minority Liberals have been dogged by the gas plants scandal and polling numbers that suggest several of its candidates are trailing their PC or NDP opponents.
In addition to Ottawa South, Liberal candidates are behind in Windsor, London and the Toronto riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore, according to polls released this week by Forum Research.
The Liberals are slightly ahead in Scarborough-Guildwood.
Wynne played down suggestions that her party is in for a drubbing on election day and urged supporters to stay positive.
“I’ve said all along that byelections are hard for governments. There are issues from the past that perhaps the opposition want to focus on, we’re looking to the future,” she said.
“Over the next few days, there’s going to be a lot of spin about what’s going to happen on Thursday, what’s not going to happen, what the polls say. We have to keep our eye on the prize.”
The Tories, however, continue to mine the past to embarrass the Liberals.
On Sunday, Tory Leader Tim Hudak’s office shared an email with the Citizen that was released Friday afternoon to the legislative committee investigating the gas plant cancellations. The email was contained in hundreds of pages of documents released to the committee.
The email, sent from an aide in the Liberal house leader’s office to McGuinty’s former chief of staff on Oct. 1, sheds new light on the government’s thinking before McGuinty chose to prorogue the legislature last fall.
The email suggests the government was considering prorogation to avoid, among other things, having the ongoing investigations into the gas plant cancellations and Ornge air ambulance service dominate the political agenda for months on end.
Proroguing the house would give Liberal MPPs a chance to “focus their time on their ridings and our agenda ... and the (premier) and cabinet can spend time preparing/ laying the groundwork for a gamechanger Throne Speech and Budget that can be introduced in the first 48 hours of the Spring Session and will constitute a massive pivot,” wrote Liberal staffer David Phillips.
Prorogation would also mean Ottawa Centre Liberal MPP Yasir Naqvi could spend his time being Ontario Liberal Party president and parliamentary secretary to the Minster of Finance instead of being tied up every day as the government’s lead member on the committee looking into the gas plants, the email said.
Two weeks after the email was sent, McGuinty surprised many by abruptly resigning as premier and proroguing the legislation (he didn’t resign his seat as Ottawa South MPP until June).
Wynne became premier in February after winning the party’s leadership at a convention in January. Naqvi later joined Wynne’s cabinet as the Minster of Labour.
In a statement Sunday, the premier’s office said Wynne “can’t speak to the decisions of the previous administration, but it would not be unusual for staff, particularly in the Government House Leader’s Office, to discuss procedural options.”
As election day neared, the three leading contenders spent the weekend knocking on doors and holding BBQs to thank the dozens of volunteers who have put in long hours over the past few weeks to help boost their candidates’ chances of victory.
Despite a recent poll that suggested he had a 14-point lead, Young implored several dozen volunteers not to take anything for granted in the dying days of the campaign when he spoke to them on Saturday morning at his campaign office.
“You’ve seen the polls, but don’t believe them,” he said. “Do not get lulled by a sense of complacency.”
His canvassing crew was later joined by Kellie Leitch, the recently-appointed federal minister of Labour and Status of Women.
Tim Hudak is expected to join Young on the campaign trail on Monday. It will be the Tory leader’s fourth visit to the riding since the writ was dropped on July 3 and signals just how hungry the Tories are for victory in a riding the McGuinty family has had a stranglehold on for more than a quarter century.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath isn’t expected be coming this way again.
She’s been here three times during the campaign and Funiciello says she is pleased to have Horwath’s backing.
“Her time here has been appreciated,” Funiciello said Saturday, after meeting with a dozen seniors at Windsor Park Manor retirement home.
In addition to Wynne, several McGuinty family members, including Ottawa South MP David McGuinty, helped Fraser canvass.
Polls will be open Thursday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.