For Ontario voters this has been a particularly dispiriting election campaign.

After 15 straight years with one party in power it’s clearly time for a change, if only to promote a healthy renewal of the democratic system.

But there’s a good reason why so many voters are agonizing over their choice on June 7.

Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals have done a lot right — much more than their critics give them credit for. But at this point they’ve accumulated so much baggage that few voters are listening.

Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats have put forward a lot of good ideas and run a strong campaign. But memories of the NDP’s last and only time in power in this province still linger after 23 years, and the party’s team is untested and largely unknown.

And then there are the Progressive Conservatives. By all rights this campaign should have been a cake-walk for the PCs, the most obvious alternative to the Liberals. Instead, they’ve shown they don’t deserve the confidence of Ontarians and they’ve squandered their early lead in the polls.

Why? In two words: Doug Ford. A PC party led by a moderate, competent conservative could have made an excellent argument to voters this year. Instead, the PCs threw themselves into the arms of a bombastic populist with a terrible track record and a platform that’s long on bumper-sticker slogans and short on actual details.

Everything we know about Ford — from his past abetting his brother Rob’s disastrous tenure at Toronto city hall, to the way he has stumbled through this campaign — shows that a government led by him would be a giant step back for Ontario.

We know that services would be sacrificed on the altar of his pledge to find $6 billion in unidentified “efficiencies” in government. We just don’t know which ones.

We know he would cut corporate taxes even further while making sure the lowest-paid workers don’t get any more. We know he would gut environmental programs like Ontario’s pioneering plan to put a price on carbon, and spend more than $1 billion pandering to drivers by cutting gasoline taxes. All this without explaining in any detail how he’d paid for it.

Ford’s specific plans, or lack of them, are bad enough. Equally bad is the divisive tone that his record shows he would bring to public life. Ontario has prospered over the past few years by being an open, progressive alternative to the toxic politics south of the border. The last thing we need is to see a Trump-lite populist installed at Queen’s Park.

The top priority at this moment for those who support forward-thinking politics is to make sure that doesn’t happen. In short, it’s to make sure the PCs aren’t elected and Doug Ford doesn’t become premier after next Thursday.

The best way to do that is to support the candidate with the best chance of defeating the PCs in each riding.

Who that is will depend a lot on where you live. Across the province as a whole the Liberals are running a poor third. But the provincial campaign isn’t so much a three-party race as a series of two-party contests.

In ridings where the Liberals are the main challengers to the PCs, voters should support their candidate.

But given the collapse in Liberal support, the real choice in most parts of the province is between the PCs and Horwath’s New Democrats. There, progressive voters should back the NDP candidate to make sure Ford doesn’t reach the premier’s office.

The New Democrats have put together a comprehensive, ambitious policy platform that addresses many of the province’s most pressing social needs. They would spend an additional $1.2 billion on health care, including mental health, home care and dental care, a long overdue priority.

They would expand support for child care, and continue the Liberal government’s cap-and-trade program to fight climate change. They would impose some new taxes on higher-income earners to pay for it all, and run smaller budget deficits than the Liberals are planning.

The NDP plan isn’t perfect; for example, we prefer the Liberals’ approach to child care. But overall it’s a program that would maintain Ontario’s progress toward a fairer and more prosperous society.

If they do form government, though, the NDP will have to face up quickly to the realities of power. In particular, it would be well advised to reassure the business community that it understands they must remain competitive — and that includes the taxes that business must pay.

We have other concerns no matter who wins.

All three parties (including the PCs) plan to keep running deficits for the next few years. The next government needs to pay greater attention to getting the province’s finances in order; we can’t assume the relatively good economic times will continue indefinitely. (It was, as we’ve written before, a mistake for the Liberals to return to deficit financing in their last budget after struggling so hard to balance the books.)

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What’s at stake in Thursday’s election is the future of the province. That’s more important than any strictly partisan choice and progressive voters should think beyond their loyalties to a particular party. They shouldn’t risk giving Doug Ford the chance to drag this province backwards, and in the great majority of ridings that means supporting the New Democrat.

Ontarians are obviously looking for change: the polls are clear on that. But the same polls show the majority of people in this province are fundamentally progressive.

They want, and deserve, a government committed to openness, inclusivity and making sure our prosperity is more widely shared. On June 7 voters should support candidates who will uphold those values.

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