PC Leader Doug Ford has shifted his aim to the New Democrats in the June 7 election campaign, raising the bogeyman of an Ontario NDP government voted out of power 23 years ago and charging today’s party is home to anti-business “radical activists.”

The blistering attack came at a news conference Friday an hour before Ford, Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath took the stage in Parry Sound for a debate on northern Ontario issues.

“Everyone remembers the dreaded NDP years, destroyed the province, raised taxes, literally destroyed the economy. We don’t want that to happen again,” Ford said of the government led by Bob Rae from 1990-95.

Read more:

Here are the four candidates wanting to be Ontario’s next premier, and what they’re promising

New northern Ontario riding buoys francophones who are ‘still fighting for their rights’

Opinion | Martin Regg Cohn: Why this Ontario election campaign matters — and is so maddening

The New Democrats took power as a debilitating recession took hold, and were defeated by the PCs under Mike Harris on a campaign that promised tax cuts, welfare cuts and less government spending.

Ford, who is hoping to improve his party’s fortunes in the north where the Liberals and NDP hold the majority of seats, accused Horwath of leading a party dominated by special interests that want to curb mining and other resource-based industries to protect the environment, hurting job prospects.

“It is clear there are two different NDPs,” he insisted, singling out NDP candidate Ramsey Hart in the eastern Ontario riding of Lanark-Frontenac and Kingston as an anti-mining activist.

“He’s an extremist environmentalist,” said Ford, who spent the first week of the campaign attacking the Liberal record.

As the debate began, Horwath said Hart is now a food bank director and dismissed Ford’s assertions that the New Democrats would be bad for the resource sector and much-needed jobs.

She accused Ford of taking an outdated approach in which industries do not have to be environmentally sustainable.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“That’s where the industry is....and rightfully so,” Horwath shot back.

Earlier, at a news conference in Toronto, Liberal MPP Steven Del Duca said Ford’s Conservatives have been making up “alternative facts” to denigrate Ontario’s economic performance under Wynne’s government, saying the provincial unemployment rate is at is lowest level in many years.

Read more about: