LILLEY: Ontario’s election campaign is about to get hot and heavy for a few weeks.

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Just when you thought it was safe to turn the TV back on, they are back! Election announcements, meaning that they arrive at a television station, radio signal, and computer screen near you.

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This week, both the PCs and the NDP launched their ads for radio, television and online, with both parties saying they will spend millions of dollars over the next few weeks. The Liberals have not disclosed their campaign focus, but promise one will come.

Under provincial regulations, parties have only a few weeks to spend these millions before pre-election spending limits go into effect. While third-party advertisers have restrictions on their spending one year before elections, registered parties are only restricted in the six months before elections. vote.

That means between now and the first week of November, when the spending cap goes into effect, expect to see and hear a lot of announcements trying to convince voters early.

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Doug Ford’s PCs were the first to come out with three ads, one promoting the prime minister and his policies and two attack ads, one for the NDP and one for the Liberals. The NDP has four ads with two focusing on its leader, Andrea Horwath, and one attack ad for each Ford and liberal leader Steven Del Duca.

“A badge of honor” is the way in which a liberal responded to both the government and the official opposition who published advertisements directed at their leader.

Both PCs and NDPs have used a similar, rather awkward video of Del Duca fidgeting on a Zoom call while using graphics and voiceovers to link him to former Prime Minister Kathleen Wynne. Until the 2018 elections, Del Duca was a minister in the Wynne government and served as the minister of transport and minister of economic development.

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It’s strange that both parties focus on a third party with just enough members to fill a mini-van, but they do so for different reasons.

Ford’s Tories want to make sure the progressive vote is divided and that the formerly strong Ontario Liberals don’t rise from the 2018 ash heap to which they were reduced after 15 years in power. The NDP is on a mission to replace liberals as the preferred progressive option.

That is something that has already happened in provincial politics in Western Canada. In Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, the NDP is the main party for left-wing voters, while in British Columbia, the Liberal Party is a coalition of liberals and conservatives at the center fighting for power.

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NDP campaign manager Michael Balagus said Friday morning that he believes his party is the only progressive option.

“I see it as the only progressive vote,” Balagus told me. He hopes that if voters want to prevent Ford’s administration from being re-elected, they will turn to his party. “I think we are in a position to replace the liberals as the strategic option.”

Balagus promised that the party will launch a practical platform when the time for the elections comes. As for the campaign, Horwath will follow in Ford’s footsteps and head north next week.

Ford visited Timmins on Monday and Tuesday to introduce local candidate George Pirie as a candidate for CP. Conservatives hope to win in a region that hasn’t voted blue since the 1980s and the NDP is determined to fight back.

The fascinating thing is that this election could turn into a fight mainly between the PCs and the NDP. Liberals have struggled with fundraising lately, picking Del Duca as their leader just a week before the province entered its first COVID shutdown.

There are eight long months to go until voting day in Ontario, but in the coming weeks it may start to feel like you’re in the middle of another election campaign.