Just a few days into the Ontario election campaign, and a new Oracle poll suggests the Progressive Conservatives have surged ahead to 42 percent voter support.  The Liberals are trailing at 31 percent, while the NDP has 25 percent support.  But the popularity of the leaders is a different story.  PC Leader Tim Hudak is the least popular leader among voters at 28 percent, compared with 42 percent for NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and 40 percent for Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Tim Hudak says he will reveal his plan for eliminating Ontario’s 12.5 billion dollar deficit today.  “I believe that we need to balance the books as quickly as possible.  We’ll do it before 2017 and I’ve got a plan to do that,” Hudak said last night in Kitchener.  2017 is when the Liberals say they will eliminate the deficit.

Kathleen Wynne’s criticism of Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa has prompted a backlash from Treasury Board President Tony Clement.  He says Wynne is just attacking his government to deflect attention from her party’s “disastrous record.”  At a stop in Ottawa, Wynne said the Prime Minister is ignoring the needs of Canada’s most populous province and says his tone deaf attitude is putting Ontario’s economic recovery in peril.  She says Ontario puts $11 billion more into federal coffers than it gets back.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says Wynne’s feud with Harper is out of sync with what voters really care about.  Horwath says voters would rather see a debate about the need for good jobs.