Ontario leadership debate

Things got heated in Parry Sound today as Doug Ford, Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath took part in a second debate. The leaders were speaking mostly to issues affecting Northern Ontario, but took turns criticising each other. For the first time, Ford focused his ire on Horwath.

Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford’s attack was the same time and time again.

“Andrea’s gonna take off from here, go back to her hard core inner core NDPers and listen to the activists, the extremists.”

“They have to keep their friends happy, they have to keep the extremists, the environmentalists happy.”

“They are more worried about the Toronto elites.”

NDP leader Andrea Horwath was quick at returning the criticism calling Ford out for not yet releasing a fully costed fiscal plan for the province.

“Mr. Ford where’s your plan? How are people going to know who you’re going to be if you don’t provide a plan that’s transparent and open.”

On the top of healthcare, Horwath says Ford is concerned with cuts.

“I think Mr. Ford needs to be upfront and straight up about exactly what those cuts look like and what kind of privatization are you going to bring to Ontario, are you going to privatize our hospitals?”

To that Ford once again stayed on message:

“Andrea, lets be honest, you don’t support the people of the north, you support your buddies in downtown Toronto.”

For the most part, Wynne seemed content to step back and let Horwath and Ford go at it, but she was challenged about axing a passenger train that connected Cochrane to Toronto.

“But people need that service and you cut it.”