A new campaign ad from theOntario Liberals takes aim at the record of NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, though party leader Kathleen Wynne says it is not a personal attack on her counterpart.
Wynne narrates the new ad, which begins with a direct reference to the NDP leader.
"Andrea Horwath claims to stand up for the real people of Ontario," Wynne says in the ad, before going on to list elements from the Liberal-proposed budget that the New Democrat leader said her party would not support.
The 30-second ad ends with the question: "Is Andrea Horwath for real?"
Ontario was pushed onto an election path after Horwath announced that her party would not vote in favour of the Liberals’ budget.
The minority Liberals could not pass their budget without the support of at least one opposition party, which left them looking to either the Progressive Conservatives or the New Democrats for support.
Since the Tories had previously said they would not be supporting the budget, the New Democrats’ decision meant that Ontarians would be headed to the polls.
On Sunday, Wynne said that the Liberals’ new ad was meant to be a statement of what Horwath and her party voted against when they chose not to support the budget.
The Liberal leader denied that the ad constituted a personal attack on Horwath.
"I have been clear all along that I was not going to engage in personal attacks. The ad is not a personal attack, the ad is a statement of what Ms. Horwath and the NDP voted against in our budget," Wynne said in Mississauga, Ont.
"This is about making a contrast because people in an election need to know what it is we stand for. We stand for the things that were in our budget."
The New Democrats have said that the Liberal budget was filled with dozens of new promises, despite the fact that the party had failed to deliver on prior promises that included lowering auto insurance rates and improving home care.
Wynne said that Ontario would have been better off had the New Democrats helped pass a budget that would otherwise be in the process of being implemented.
"It would have been better had we been able to get that budget passed and if we were beginning to implement it today rather than an election that I don't think we need," she said.
The election takes place on June 12.