If Dalton McGuinty wants to see how the next provincial election campaign will likely unfold, all he has to do is take a long, hard look at the current Toronto mayoral race.

What the Ontario premier will see is an election dominated by anger, with more Toronto voters than anyone had imagined saying they are fed up with everything from taxes to government “waste” and incompetence.

He will also see that Rob Ford, the city councillor once dismissed as a long shot, is successfully courting this voter rage and, if the polls hold true until Oct. 25, could well be Toronto’s next mayor.

That would mean a stunning defeat for George Smitherman, one of McGuinty’s former cabinet stars who entered the mayoral race as the obvious frontrunner.

If he’s not careful, McGuinty could be facing the same voter anger in the next provincial election in October 2011.

Indeed, there’s a warning for McGuinty in the success of Ford’s campaign, namely that if he fails to confront this anger, he will leave the door open for opposition leader Tim Hudak, a take-no-prisoners politician, to exploit the frustration just as Ford is doing.

At the same time, McGuinty must deal with unrest within his caucus, where many MPPs, especially those outside the city of Toronto, fear losing their seats in the 201l election.

For most of the past year, the McGuinty government has been weakened by “bad news.”

Voters are furious with a wide range of issues, including the new harmonized sales tax, higher energy prices and secretly allowing police sweeping powers at the G20 summit.

That’s on top of the scandals at eHealth, where more than $1 billion was wasted, and at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp.

Even his promise of a new tax credit for kids’ activities, such as sports and music lessons, worth up to $50 for a child under 16, is being denounced as an insultingly small amount.

Same is true for the start this week of all-day kindergarten, which Hudak and right-wing commentators are attacking as too expensive.

Bit by bit, McGuinty is alienating voter groups across Ontario.

A prime example is health care, where despite all his government’s upbeat talk about how it has improved the system, Ontario still lacks a well-funded home, rehabilitation and community care system.

The result of all this negative news is that for the first time since the 2007 election, the Conservatives have edged ahead of the Liberals in popular support, with the latest polls showing the Tories ahead by a 36-35 margin.

The first chance for McGuinty to turn around his party’s fortunes comes next Monday when the Legislature resumes sitting after a three-month break.

That’s when he must start focusing on three or four issues that really matter to voters.

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Topping that list should be health care, especially home and community care.

McGuinty also needs to start delivering on “good news” items, both large and small.

A good example of a small item is a private member’s bill proposed by Wayne Arthurs, the MPP for Pickering-Scarborough East, that would require all new provincial and municipal public buildings to be equipped with a visual fire alarm system for the benefit of deaf and hard-of-hearing people.

And the Liberals must do a better job of communicating with voters, instead of issuing confusing or flip-flopping policies, such as on the recently proposed new sex-ed curriculum.

But it’s not all grim for Liberals. There are signs McGuinty finally realizes what he’s up against.

The first came Monday evening when the full caucus joined in a telephone conference offering them a rare chance to air complaints and offer advice.

The second was when the Liberals launched a series of ads touting all-day kindergarten, one of the few openly partisan efforts to differentiate themselves from the Hudak-led Conservatives.

Still, McGuinty should keep a close eye on Toronto.

That’s because a Ford victory would show the power of voter anger. On a provincial level, that anger could well ruin any dream McGuinty holds of winning a third term.

Bob Hepburn’s column appears Thursday. bhepburn@thestar.ca

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