SCARBOROUGH — Howard Hampton said voters neither “trust nor believe” Dalton McGuinty and suggested the Liberal leader will break campaign promises to finally implement full-day kindergarten and double energy conservation if his party is re-elected.
“He will promise anything, he will say anything, he will tell you anything the day before the election to get your vote,” the NDP leader told a campaign rally in Scarborough. “The day after the election, his promises mean nothing.”
With just two days left until the election, Mr. Hampton has ramped up his campaign's schedule, stopping in Oshawa, Bellevile, Kingston and Ottawa yesterday and visiting four of the party's newly won ridings in Hamilton and Toronto today before heading to his home seat of Fort Frances in Northern Ontario.
He accused the Liberal party of ignoring the real issues, and voters, by declaring his victory before Ontario goes to the polls.
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“In the last two minutes of the game, you don't pretend like you won. Invariably, that's when you get scored on,” Mr. Hampton said at a whistle-stop appearance with two candidates in Belleville, Ont. “They're so arrogant they believe they can take us all for granted. But people have the power to teach him a lesson.”
Mr. Hampton said his party has recently been “making up a lot of ground” and focused his attacks on the Liberal leader in an apparent attempt to woo conservative or undecided voters.
“John Tory's campaign has been a disaster,” he said. “And Dalton McGuinty's out there trying to convince everyone that the election's over.”
The Liberal leader has made more than “six dozen” promises throughout the election, both in his platform and during campaign stops, Mr. Hampton said, a list he hypothesized could cost in excess of $26-billion. The Liberals have given their platform a price tag of $14.7-billion over four years.
But Mr. Hampton said he does not believe Mr. McGuinty will follow through on many of his pledges, saying that he expects a “blank cheque” from voters.
“They're promising to implement full day JK and SK but if you look at the numbers they have on that it's completely unrealistic,” Mr. Hampton said. “They continue to talk about energy conservation but the only thing they have produced is an advertising campaign that is superficial at best.”
The NDP leader accused his opponent of arrogance, saying he is acting like the election is over and relying on Mr. Tory's bungled campaign to propel him to victory.
“It's the same old Dalton McGuinty, he thinks that as soon as the election is over he can go on doing whatever he wants,” he said at an Oshawa, Ont., campaign stop with candidate Sid Ryan. “That kind of arrogance is a huge mistake.”
Mr. Hampton would not say how many seats his party would have to win for the NDP to be able to influence a second Liberal government, and refused to speculate on his own future as party leader if he fails to make significant gains. Throughout the afternoon, he refused to answer questions about the PC leader, concentrating his attack against Mr. McGuinty.
“We're going to make sure that people think about the real issues that Dalton McGuinty has tried to avoid over the last 28 days and over the last four years,” he said. “Dalton McGuinty has tried to avoid his sorry record and his long list of broken promises.”
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