With a few days left until Ontarians get to decide who their next premier will be, Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne made a stop in London to meet with local supporters encouraging them to vote for her party on June 7.
Wynne spoke at Margo and Tuffy on Tuesday afternoon with London-North Centre candidate Kate Graham and other local candidates standing behind her.
Wynne continues to urge voters to vote for as many Liberal MPPs as possible to prevent opposition parties from winning a majority government.
“We need to make sure that there is a strong group of MPPs at Queen’s Park, with I will say a good contingent of Liberals to make sure that, that practical problem-solving that we have been doing that has led us to a place where Ontario is on a really good track,” said Wynne.
“We need to make sure that there are good strong Liberals there from London, from southwestern Ontario, from all across the province, so that those regions are represented, so that the conversation that happens in the legislature at Queen’s Park is about the whole province and solutions for the challenges that confront every single part of this province.”
She says having a majority government under PC Leader Doug Ford or NDP Leader Andrea Horwath carries a lot of risk. She describes the 2018 election as a strange campaign.
“Having Doug Ford as the leader of the Conservatives and someone who was OK with having Andrew Lawton as his candidate, that’s not something we would ever have predicted in this province. I would say even as recently as a couple of years ago,” said Wynne.
“To have someone who is as divisive, as Islamophobic, as misogynist, to have that kind of permission for those kinds of attitudes. I think we all have to be very vigilant and say, ‘That is so not OK. It is not acceptable to any of us in London or anywhere else in the province.'”
Wynne then called out Horwath by addressing her stance on back-to-work legislation, with which Wynne opened by saying she recently visited York University, a school that has been on strike since March.
“To have an NDP government without any checks on it that would say, ‘It’s OK to never ever consider back-to-work legislation,'” Wynne said.
She adds, “I believe in the collective bargaining process. I know organized labour has done an enormous amount for this province and for our democracy, but to say that when all those tools have been used, when all the processes have been exhausted, to say that government should not have the ability to act in the public interest, to act on behalf of those students, or act on behalf of the people if there is a garbage strike or a transit strike, it just makes no sense, it’s not practical.”
Wynne concluded by telling her candidates to continue canvassing, using the loss of her first election to drive her point home.
“It’s going to be a really tight race… I lost my first election by 72 votes, so when you have knocked on your last door, we need you to knock on 72 more doors, so we don’t lose by 72 votes.”