The NDP is in the best position to defeat Doug Ford and the Ontario PC Party, Andrea Horwath said Wednesday morning as she launched her election campaign out front of Queen’s Park.
Horwath said housing, the “increasing cost of everyday life, the (broken) health care system and seniors’ care systems” are the topics that concern Ontarians and “those are the conversations I’m going to be having with folks for the next 28 or 29 days” before the June 2 election.
She was to spend Wednesday hitting locations around the GTA, including Mississauga and Scarborough.
“We’re going to get to as many regions in this province as possible,” she told reporters as she stood in front of her campaign bus, the only one this election campaign that will travel across the province with the leader and reporters on board . (Media outlets pay to ride on the bus.)
“There’s a lot at stake in this campaign, so we want to be as in as many places as possible,” she added.
In the 2018 election, the NDP won 40 of the legislature’s 124 seats, becoming the official opposition to Doug Ford and his PC party, with the governing Liberals reduced to just seven seats and losing official party status.
Ford was in Brampton early Wednesday and Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca in Etobicoke.
Horwath noted that in 2018, the NDP came first or second in 100 seats in the province.
“So if the job is to get rid of Doug Ford and not give him a chance to make things worse for people, to make life harder and further cut as Conservatives always do, then the best shot we have of doing that is electing an NDP member in your riding,” said Horwath, who has led the provincial NDP since 2009.
“… As the official opposition, we’re the team that has the strength, that has the experience, and that’s prepared to take over the reins and do that now.”
Horwath also said her party now has a full slate of candidates, and as with the last two provincial elections is on track to elect at least 50 per cent women.
Among NDP candidates, 55 per cent are women or non-binary, 33 per cent are racialized, and 12 per cent identify as LGBTQ+.
“People are feeling that life’s gotten tougher,” Horwath told reporters. “Things have gotten harder under Doug Ford. And of course we know that folks were disappointed that the Liberals, after 15 years, left our health-care system in shambles. Our long-term-care system is so vulnerable to COVID that 40,000 people lost their lives in tragic ways.
“These things can be fixed, but you have to have a government that’s prepared to prioritize the cost of everything going up — except for people’s wages. What they need is a government that’s on their side. And I think clearly, that’s the message we’re bringing, you actually can have a government that’s going to be on your side.”
As for the Liberal threat — polls have shown the party to be close in popularity to the NDP, with the PCs out front — “I don’t think this election should be about party rebuilding,” Horwath also told reporters. “I think this election should be about a province that really needs to change focus, that needs to be focused on the needs of everyday people, and making sure that everyday people can afford everyday life.”
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