Voters in Thornhill and Niagara Falls are heading to the polls for Feb. 13 byelections.

Premier Kathleen Wynne made it official Wednesday by calling the votes to fill vacancies in the two seats left by the retirement of Progressive Conservative Peter Shurman and Liberal Kim Craitor.

Wynne met Wednesday with reporters at the Queens Quay LCBO store where she touted Ontario’s wine industry, which is largely based in Niagara.

On Monday, the Liberals pledged $26.2 million for the Niagara Health System to help build a new hospital and two urgent-care centres.

That followed on last month’s $75-million, five-year wine strategy, which should help Niagara’s many wineries and grape growers.

At the LCBO event the Premier was asked by a reporter if these efforts were enough to secure that Liberal seat in the byelection.

She said both efforts have been in the works for “many many months.’’

Wynne said: “we are the government that has said we would build a hospital, work with that community to build a hospital.”

The Premier criticized the NDP and Conservatives for not being consistent on the hospital issue in Niagara.

Vying to succeed Craitor in Niagara Falls are Liberal Joyce Morocco, a city councillor and Tory Bart Maves, a regional councillor who was MPP from 1995 until 2003.

The NDP candidate is expected to be city councillor Wayne Gates.

In Thornhill, represented by Shurman from 2007 to 2013, the Liberal candidate is Vaughan councillor Sandra Yeung Racco, whose husband, Mario Racco, was the former Grit MPP.

The Tories are holding their nomination meeting Thursday and Gila Martow, a former local riding association, is expected to get the nod there. The NDP has yet to select a candidate for Thornhill.

NDP leader Andrea Horwath said nominations meetings for her party will be held on the weekend in both ridings.

“We’re going to field a candidate in Niagara Falls who is clearly going to be a community leader,’’ she said.

Tory leader Tim Hudak touted his plan to create one million jobs over eight years, adding the byelections will “provide hardworking middle class families with the opportunity to demand better from their government.’’

Hudak added: “The McGuinty-Wynne Liberals put their own short-term political interest ahead of yours, leaving you with unaffordable hydro bills to pay for their gas plant scandal. They've added 300,000 bureaucratic government workers at the same time Ontario has lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs.”

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Meanwhile, the Green Party will announce a Thornhill flag-bearer by Friday and a Niagara Falls nomination meeting is being held Sunday.

Next month’s contests will likely serve as a precursor to a provincial election widely expected for May if Finance Minister Charles Sousa’s spring budget is defeated.

Including Speaker Dave Levac, the Liberals have 49 MPPs in the 107-member legislature to 36 for the Tories and 20 for the New Democrats.