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“It’s very important that Ontario Place be the iconic destination it’s always been,” Wynne said, “a place to be used by everyone.” Her main competition, the Progressive Conservatives’ Tim Hudak and the New Democrats’ Andrea Horwath — why, if they have plans for Ontario Place, Wynne hasn’t heard them.

This may be because the farther you live from Ontario Place, the less its condition matters to you. Interest in the problem drops to zero about where the tip of the CN Tower disappears over the horizon.

Toronto is this province’s economic and population centre, particularly if you expand your understanding of “Toronto” to cover suburbs as far as Hamilton. It has exceptional importance and exceptional problems, particularly in transportation. Getting people and freight into, out of, and around Toronto is important even to Ontarians who don’t live there. But it’s a pity to run a whole election campaign over it.

Friday, Hudak entered Toronto’s transit debate, an intense promisefest the Liberals have been starring in for weeks. (Electrified GO Trains! More service to Kitchener! An LRT in Mississauga!) Hudak showed up with detailed prescriptions for what subway lines to build and what surface rail lines to cancel, because somehow subways, which have their place but typically cover less ground for more money, became the Conservatives’ ideal transit technology. He also promised more diesel GO Trains.

Three days later, the talk is about the redevelopment plan for Ontario Place, a thing it’s not even obvious the people of Alexandria and North Bay and Kenora ought to own a share of at all. Wynne tried desultorily to link her Ontario Place plan to provincewide policies on land use, but it wasn’t convincing.