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Ontario New Democrat Leader Howard Hampton turned his sights on a new target yesterday, accusing Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory and the media of hijacking the election campaign and ignoring the real issues.

Mr. Hampton's outburst comes as it appears increasingly likely that his party will be relegated to the sidelines once again after next Wednesday's election.

As recently as last week, Ontario voters appeared divided enough to bring in a minority government and Mr. Hampton was openly talking about the prospect of his party holding the balance of power.

But momentum appears to be shifting to the Liberals, all but dashing Mr. Hampton's hopes. He suggested that Mr. Tory's decision to promote public funding for all religious schools - a contentious topic that drowned out virtually everything else - was to blame.

Until now, Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty has been the sole target of Mr. Hampton's attacks.

"Mr. Hampton expressed a clear sense of frustration that Mr. Tory's faith-based schools fiasco has dominated election coverage," said NDP spokesman Jeff Ferrier. "That's because that has meant a free ride for Mr. McGuinty despite his miserable record of letdowns and broken promises and [it has] completely overshadowed the issues that matter to ordinary people."

Mr. Hampton pointed out some of those issues for reporters yesterday.

"We've become the child poverty capital of Canada - don't any of you people care?" Mr. Hampton railed. "Don't you care that there are seniors living in soiled diapers? Don't you care about that?"

Mr. Tory tacitly acknowledged on Monday that the policy has hurt his campaign when he announced that he would put it to a free vote in the legislature should be become premier.

He told reporters at a campaign stop in Cobourg that he is also unhappy that his school policy has dominated the campaign.

"I share Mr. Hampton's frustration," he said. "In the end, there were other issues and we both share in common the view that Mr. McGuinty has done nothing to deserve re-election ... and so now we're into a different stage of the campaign where I think Mr. Hampton and myself are having an opportunity to talk about Mr. McGuinty's record."

As the campaign enters its final phase, Mr. Tory said he is doing his best to make voters think of something else. In an all-out effort to salvage his party's fortunes, he held six campaign events yesterday in six different cities.

His topic for the day was the province's acute shortage of family doctors. He has frequently mentioned the plight of Etta Young, a 92-year-old Cobourg resident who has resorted to advertising for a family doctor in the local paper. Yesterday, he invited Ms. Young to attend a campaign rally.

Mr. Tory promised that he would provide financial incentives to lure some of the estimated 9,000 Canadian-trained doctors working in the United States back to Ontario. He also said he would encourage young doctors to stay here by letting them defer paying back loans for medical school, and provide more flexible retirement arrangements for older doctors to allow them to continue practising part-time.

The Liberals have already put out the welcome mat to Ontario-trained doctors and physician assistants living in the United States to encourage them to return home.

Mr. Tory said Ms. Young represents the "human cost" of the doctor shortage. One million adults in Ontario do not have a family doctor - a statistic that has not budged since the Liberals came to power four years ago, he said.

Ms. Young told reporters that she thinks the health-care system is "absolutely dreadful. Maybe I've just lost faith, I don't know," she said. "I'm sure if Mr. Tory can do what he says he can do, boy, he deserves to get in."

Mr. McGuinty scoffed at suggestions he is ducking issues. "I get all kinds of advice when it comes to how to campaign," he told reporters after a stop at College Heights Secondary School in Guelph.

Mr. McGuinty made a few comments to a group of students but did not take any questions. He later denied that he was avoiding questioning, saying he talked to several afterward.

With files from Caroline Alphonso in Toronto and The Canadian Press