Ontario election enters Batman mode: Liberals apologize for ads depicting Hudak as hospital-destroying Joker

NationalPost.com
June 11, 2014
Maria Babbage

TORONTO — With just a day left before Ontario voters head to the polls, accusations of dirty tricks are flying on the campaign trail.

The Progressive Conservatives were incensed about a Liberal flyer substituting Tory Leader Tim Hudak as the psychopathic Joker from the The Dark Knight.

The flyer, which was distributed in a Liberal riding north of Toronto, depicts Hudak laughing as he walks away from an exploding hospital.

The question beneath the picture asks voters if they trust Hudak and the Ontario PCs with their future.

“I haven’t seen the piece of literature, but this kind of campaigning is not acceptable,” Premier Kathleen Wynne said Wednesday during a stop at a Toronto elementary school.

“It’s not consistent with what we have been doing throughout this campaign.”

Steven Del Duca, who holds the riding of Vaughan, apologized to Hudak over Twitter, saying it “was a mistake for which I am sorry.”

Public opinion polls suggest Ontario’s Liberals and Tories are in a virtual tie, with just a few hours left before voters start casting their ballots.

The Tories called the flyers “terrorist literature,” saying it’s fear-mongering at its worst to scare voters into voting Liberal.

It’s “beyond the pale,” said deputy Tory leader Christine Elliott.

“I don’t know if it breaks any actual election rules but it certainly breaks any rules of civility in election campaigns,” she said. “It’s gone way too far.”

It appears the ad was borrowed (or at least heavily inspired) by a tongue-in-cheek Twitter post by Postmedia journalist Ishmael Daro.

The Liberals accused the Tories of breaking the rules Tuesday after dozens of voters in London received letters directing them to the wrong polling station, adding that similar notices were also sent out to voters in an Ottawa riding.

The Tories said it was an innocent mixup and apologized, but the Liberals suggested its a deliberate attempt at voter suppression and filed a complaint with Elections Ontario.

Hudak called them honest mistakes, but said Wynne is running a “campaign of fear.”

“I don’t know why the Liberals are using the tactics that they are,” he said during a campaign stop in Mississauga, west of Toronto.

“The fact that the leader of the Liberal party, Kathleen Wynne, would start a day by saying that I’m going to harm kids, and ended the day with an over-the-top flyer with me laughing in front of a hospital exploding — I’ve never seen that before.”

The leaders of all three main parties are putting in one final push, with Wynne staying in vote-rich Toronto and focusing mostly on NDP-held ridings.

She’s also planning to visit the PC riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore, which is the party’s only Toronto seat.

New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath is making eight stops at non-NDP ridings in Mississauga, Brampton, Toronto, Oshawa, Belleville and Kingston.

Hudak is heading south to Waterloo, Niagara Falls and Jarvis, where he’ll wrap up his campaign with a town hall meeting.