KINGSTON, ONT.— Kathleen Wynne says she would not back a minority Progressive Conservative administration if her Liberals lose Thursday’s election, leaving open the question of whether Ontarians could be back at the polls again soon.

“Because of the plan he has put forward I will not support a Tim Hudak government. What he is proposing is dangerous to the people of this province,” the Liberal leader charged Tuesday at St. Lawrence College.

“I don’t see any good coming of supporting the proposals he’s put forward,” Wynne added, repeating her pitch that voters should abandon the NDP for the Liberals as the only way to stop Hudak in a tight race.

RELATED:

Interactive: Compare leaders’ promises

More on the Ontario election

It was unclear if Wynne’s position, along with NDP Leader Andrea Horwath’s insistence Tuesday that she would not form a coalition with the Conservatives, could force another province-wide election.

Pressed on whether she would direct her MPPs to defeat every Hudak initiative, Wynne would not go into details and repeated a line she began using last week.

“Whatever party gets the most seats in this election on Thursday has the right to form a government and I will not support a Tim Hudak government,” she said, refusing to take further questions.

Earlier, Wynne insisted she is running for a “strong mandate,” noting recent public opinion polls suggest “this race is effectively tied.”

“It will be Tim Hudak or it will be me . . . we need every progressive vote in this province.”

She boasted the Liberals’ recent left-leaning spring budget was the most “progressive” in decades and yet was rejected by the NDP.

Horwath said the Liberals had not fulfilled promises from last year’s budget and said the government did not deserve support because it is “corrupt” over the $1.1 billion scandal involving two power plants axed before the 2011 election.

Wynne appeared in a classroom at the college with early childhood education students she said would not get jobs if Hudak is elected with his plan to cut 100,000 public sector jobs, including 10,000 early childhood educators.

“He thinks those jobs are expendable,” Wynne said during wide-ranging remarks that ran over 15 minutes, calling the students the “human cost” of cuts.

Hudak maintains his plan will simply reduce public sector employment to 2009 levels with 25,000 job reductions annually for four years through attrition, retirements and layoffs, and says it is necessary to help eliminate a $12.5 billion deficit in two years.

But Wynne claimed it means that the students she posed with in the college photo op will graduate with little prospect for employment because the Tories would lay off early childhood educators already working in full-day kindergartens, leaving a glut of them on the labour market.

She denied the students were a prop for fear-mongering over Hudak, who has also proposed to cut corporate taxes by 30 per cent in his Million Jobs Plan that has been questioned by many economists for inflating employment numbers.

Outside the college, the Liberal entourage was met by about a dozen New Democrats waving signs and furious about Wynne’s claim that “a vote for Andrea Horwath is a vote for Tim Hudak.”

“That’s crap,” said NDP activist Jeannie Everle, a retired government worker.

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

The Liberals are hoping to hold the riding of Kingston and the Islands after the retirement of veteran cabinet minister John Gerretsen.

Wynne’s appearance is a sign the party wanted to shore up votes in the area before moving on to campaign appearances in Trenton and Pickering.

In Trenton, the Liberals believe they have a chance to regain Northumberland-Quinte West from Conservative MPP Rob Milligan, who narrowly defeated Liberal incumbent Lou Rinaldi in the 2011 vote. Rinaldi is mounting a comeback bid.

Read more about: