On day eight of the Ontario election campaign the Liberals, NDP and Progressive Conservatives all had “issues” to deal with.
A day after Tory leader Doug Ford skipped out of the post-debate media questions in North Bay the party said its leader planned no campaign events for Wednesday. Then the Ford Twitter account flashed pictures of Ford campaigning in Etobicoke. A question to the PC campaign got a quick one sentence reply, explaining that Ford was “making campaign stops in Etobicoke Centre and Etobicoke-Lakeshore and then door knocking in Don Valley West and Scarborough-Guildwood.
When I then asked for places and times to cover these campaign events I was told Ford has “no media events scheduled.” The PC campaign is making it clear its leader is going to campaign away from the media.
All the polls over the last couple of weeks have the PCs ahead and close to majority territory. (Remember the magic number is 63 seats.) There is nothing new for a campaign with the lead to keep its leader away from reporters with questions. If the PC internal polling shows that its base support is solid and unlikely to shift it might be the right strategy for the Tories.
That said keeping Ford away from reporters for three weeks is going to be hard to do. And the questions will keep on coming. On Tuesday evening Stephen Lecce, the education minister in the Ford government, was forced to apologize after photos and documents surfaced showing he took part in a “slave auction” while at the University of Western Ontario.
The NDP released riding financial reports showing that two PC MPPs have received money for expenses helping to top up their salaries from their riding associations. Global News now reports a total of eight MPPs received cash for expenses. Today NDP leader Andrea Horwath promised to ban the practice of funnelling this kind of extra money from ridings to sitting MPPs.
Meanwhile, a report in the Queen’s Park Observer reveals the first NDP rumblings that it is “win or out” for Horwath. The NDP numbers are slipping and if the party can’t pull off a win on June 2 it is probably Horwath’s last Ontario campaign as leader. Horwath keeps facing questions about when the NDP platform will be costed. Steven Del Duca makes a point of zeroing in on the cost-free NDP programs.
One comeback from the NDP is to challenge the financial assumptions in the Liberal platform. In a release Wednesday the NDP maintained the Liberals are counting on money from Ottawa that is not accounted for in the federal budget. The NDP calls it “magic money” that won’t “fix what’s broke.”
The Liberal party only has a few hours to repair the damage done in Sault Ste. Marie after it was forced to pull its candidate the day after he was acclaimed as the Liberal nominee. Then, late Wednesday, another Liberal candidate was suddenly dropped by the party. The NDP war room called out Barry Stanley, running in Parry Sound-Muskoka, for a book he wrote with a baseless claim of a cause of homosexuality. As of Wednesday afternoon only 116 Liberal candidates are listed on the Liberal website. The Liberals have scrambled to find nominees in eight ridings and now have 122 candidates nominated.
On Thursday the Liberals will keep Del Duca in the vote rich GTA for another day of campaigning. Horwath will be in Brantford-Brant, a riding the party needs to grab from the Tories to win on June 2. Ford will be back doing one media campaign event in Kitchener before heading to Windsor with “photo op only” stops along the way.
