TORONTO – Ontario party leaders got together for their first and only televised debate Tuesday night before the provincial election on June 12.
As Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak and NDP leader Andrea Horwath talked gas plants, corruption and bad math, social media users criticized their performances and platforms, using the hashtags #ONDebate and #ONVote.
The 90-minute debate got off to a rocky start, with many slamming moderator Steve Paikin and urging him to do his job better.
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Because of the debate structure, people also questioned where Hudak was as it appeared he was missing in action for the first few minutes.
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Once the debate got going, the focus quickly shifted to the gas plant scandal.
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With the gas plant scandal dominating, people wondered when Hudak would bring up his “Million Jobs” plan.
Then he got to it.
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No leader was safe from criticism and people picked each of them apart.
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A few wondered why the Green Party was not invited to the debate.
https://twitter.com/Johnny_Athenz/status/473991449885679616
Which might have actually been a good thing for the Green Party as people started throwing their support behind them after being disappointed with what they were hearing from Wynne, Hudak, and Horwath.
One thing for certain, people were generally not impressed with the debate.
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While who won the debate is still up in the air, according to Topsy, Hudak has had the most mentions on Twitter over the last month with a whopping 143,090 tweets about him. In comparison, Wynne has had just over 61,000 and Horwath has had around 27,000.
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