Advance polls open as Ontario campaign enters last two weeks

Advance voting polls open Thursday as the Ontario election campaign enters its final two weeks.

Polls show the Liberals and the NDP entering the last half of the campaign in a battle to emerge as the clear challenger to the Doug Ford Progressive Conservatives.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath was in the Kingston and Ottawa areas Wednesday to expand on her election promise to ensure universal pharmacare coverage, “I'm running for premier and I'm running to have a majority government,” Horwath said. “It's about saying to folks you don't have to keep going back between Liberals and Conservatives, Liberals that disappoint you — they talk a good game and then they get elected and they don't follow through.”

Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca, asked about a possible coalition between his party and the NDP, said his fight is with Ford.

“I think we're now in a spot with 16 days to go where there is a very, very clear consensus that has developed around the fact that Ontario Liberals have momentum ... I believe that we are pulling away from the NDP,” he said.

Horwath's itinerary calls for her to be in Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay on Thursday to meet with first-time voters and to announce a plan for “jobs that pay the bills.”

The Ford campaign said he is scheduled to be in Niagara-on-the-lake on Thursday for an announcement on “getting it done,” which for the past few days has meant the announcement of endorsements from construction-related unions.

Voting information cards which are being mailed out by Elections Ontario contain times and locations for local advance polls. Chief electoral officer Greg Essensa said Ontario now provides advance polls over 10 days, up from five.

“Ontario has the longest period for advance polls of any province in the country,” Essensa said in a recent interview.