Liberal leadership candidate Sandra Pupatello says she’s not about to play nice with the opposition.

Pupatello, a frontrunner in the six-person race to replace Premier Dalton McGuinty, told a Toronto Board of Trade luncheon, “I am not your political coalition candidate.”

She was responding to reports earlier in the week that NDP Leader Andrea Horwath was open to a coalition agreement to avert a snap election, but on Thursday even she put an end to such talk.

“I can assure you I have not been in touch with the NDP to see how they might respond if I am elected leader,” she said in her speech to the largely business crowd.

“Liberals and New Democrats have divergent views on many things, just as Liberals and Tories do. So I am not prepared to discuss a coalition government with the NDP nor with Mr. (Tim) Hudak’s Tories, for that matter,” said the former Windsor MPP.

Her closest leadership competitor MPP Kathleen Wynne (Don Valley West) also mused earlier in the week about joining forcing with the NDP to stop the Tories from plunging the province into another provincial election. But she too did an about-face later.

Pupatello said should she win at the Liberal convention at Maple Leaf Gardens Jan. 25-27 she will fulfill her campaign promise to call Horwath and Hudak.

“I will call them and invite them to meet me and talk about how we can all work together to keep Ontario on the path to economic recovery. That’s what the people of Ontario want; they want cooperation, not coalition,” she said.

Rather than proposing any kind of peace deal with the opposition, Pupatello said she intends to beat the New Democrats — “I know how to beat them like I have every time in Windsor” — and appeal to so-called Red Tories to support Liberals instead of the right-of-centre Hudak Progressive Conservatives.

“I want to appeal to every Red Tory in Ontario so they understand that we want the same things: Jobs, a strong economy and a frugal government with a social conscience,” she said.

During her speech, Pupatello said while her roots are in Windsor, she has also been a Toronto resident for the past 17 years.

“I am a Torontonian who understands the economic and cultural importance of this city and the GTA to the well-being not only of Ontario, but also of Canada,” she said.

Pupatello was first elected in 1995 but did not seek re-election in 2011 in order to take a Bay Street job with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

“Not only do I understand Toronto, I travelled the world when I was in government, selling Toronto and its attributes to the rest of the world,” said the former economic development minister in McGuinty’s cabinet, who added that the GTA alone generates 20 percent of Canada’s GDP, is host to 40 percent of Canada’s head offices and home to what the IMF calls ‘the world’s best banking system.’”

Pupatello said she understands that Toronto’s economic growth is linked with improved public transit.

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“Now we need to fund it. We’re going to pursue the federal government for annualized transit funding that reflects Toronto’s status as a global city to supplement the $12 billion public transit investment already made by the Ontario (government) here in the GTA,” she said.

Pupatello took a direct shot at the Tories, saying that the road to economic success is not “a low-wage race to the bottom with jurisdictions like Alabama and Georgia.”

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