Kathleen Wynne is running‎ against Tim Hudak, Andrea Horwat‎h and Stephen Harper — and away from Dalton McGuinty in the June 12 election.

The premier went on the attack against her provincial rivals and the prime minister Friday after Horwath said her New Democrats would not pass the minority Liberal government’s budget due to McGuinty-era scandals.

That plunged the province into an election that will test more than a decade of Grit rule with an extended 41-day campaign due a conflict with a June 5 religious holiday.

Painting the vote as “a choice between safe hands and risky tactics,” Wynne criticized the NDP, who have propped up the Liberals for two years, for not supporting a budget that promised an Ontario pension plan, new social spending and transit infrastructure investments.

After visiting Lieutenant-Governor David Onley to formally dissolve the legislature, she said Hudak would just be a lackey of Harper and that neither Conservative leader was looking out for Ontarians.

But one politician’s name did not cross her lips — that of McGuinty, the controversial predecessor she replaced on Feb. 11, 2013 whose legacy has dogged her.

“I am Kathleen Wynne. I have been premier for over a year now,” she said when asked repeatedly about whether his decision to scrap two gas-fired power plants before the 2011 election would haunt her.

The hasty cancellation of those generators in Oakville and Mississauga, which could cost up to $1.1 billion over the next 20 years, has sparked an Ontario Provincial Police investigation into the alleged erasing of computer hard drives in the premier’s office.

Horwath said her party could not back a Liberal budget laden with sops to the NDP because she “cannot in good conscience support a government that people don’t trust anymore.”

She dismissed the $130.4-billion budget as “a mad dash to escape the scandals by promising the moon and the stars.”

But Horwath took heat from Hudak for essentially enabling the Liberals for the past two years.

“We would sit there in the legislature every day. The gas plant scandal has been around since 2011 yet we wonder why in the world the NDP keep propping up the Liberals,” he said Friday afternoon in Ottawa.

Both Hudak and Horwath have repeatedly castigated the Liberals for using public money to axe the locally unpopular plants in a “seat saver” move to protect five Liberal MPPs in Oakville, Mississauga and Etobicoke.

Speaking to a town hall, he looked relaxed as he gave a preview of the themes he intends of PC platform — job creation, reining in soaring hydro costs and cutting taxes.

“I have got a laser-like focus on job creation,” said Hudak, adding, “I’ve got a plan that actually spreads optimism around the province.”

On Thursday, Finance Minister Charles Sousa tabled a spending plan designed to appeal to New Democrat MPPs and, if necessary, serve as the Liberal campaign platform should the minority government be toppled.

Still, the Liberals expected the NDP to withdraw their support — sources told the Toronto Star the governing party spent $200,000 wrapping two campaign buses and equipping them for the election.

Those buses, which feature Wynne’s beaming face, were being housed in a Midland warehouse and will begin rolling Monday morning.

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The Tories, who have been on election footing for months, are also readying campaign buses.

It’s not yet clear what the New Democrats’ plans are for the coming campaign.

Sousa’s dead-on-arrival budget, which was backed by Ontario Federation of Labour president Sid Ryan and other NDP-friendly union leaders, included a new Ontario Retirement Pension Plan that would force Ontarians to earmark a small part of their paycheques for retirement unless they have an employer’s pension plan.

It also featured a 1 per cent increase for Ontario Works recipients and those getting Ontario Disability Support Program benefits and boosted the Ontario Child Benefit, which helps low-income families, from $1,210 a year per child to $1,310.

As well, over the next decade the Grits pledged $29 billion for transportation infrastructure, including public transit, $11 billion for school construction and repair, and $11.4 billion for hospitals.

The Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Ontario Nurses Association and Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union, had urged Horwath to back the spending plan.

Only Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), said the NDP should join with the Tories in toppling the Grits.

Thomas took shots at his fellow union leaders after Horwath’s news conference for saying the NDP should support the budget, which also gives $4 hourly raises to personal support workers in the home care system.

“They’re afraid of Tim Hudak. I’m not afraid of Tim Hudak,” Thomas added, saying Unifor president Jerry Dias “supported the budget without reading it” and “I’m disappointed in Brother Ryan,” a reference to the OFL president.

Unlike Hudak and Horwath, Wynne has never led a party in a province-wide campaign.

Ontario’s first female premier, and Canada’s first openly gay premier, is a political pioneer. But under the Don Valley West MPP, the Liberals have not fared well in byelections since she took over.

They’ve lost seats previously held by cabinet ministers in Etobicoke, London and Windsor, and finished third in Niagara Falls, which they had represented since McGuinty’s first victory in 2003.

At dissolution of the 107-member legislature there were 48 Liberal MPPs, including Speaker Dave Levac, 37 Tories, 21 New Democrats, and one vacancy.

With files from Bruce Campion-Smith

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