The only people injured by this week's insufferable war of words between the Ontario Liberal cabinet and federal Conservative leadership candidate Kevin O'Leary were devout news consumers who witnessed the excruciating performance.

O'Leary has long been a fan of the sanctimonious exercise, which is less about communication than it is about theatre. For years, he's written open letters to Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, urging them to reconsider various political initiatives using 1,000-word diatribes that loosely translate to "Look at me!"

Kevin O'Leary undoubtedly loves this stuff. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)

This week, Wynne responded in kind, penning a letter to O'Leary chastising him for "inaccurate" comments he made to the media about Ontario's auto sector. O'Leary responded with his own open letter, daring Wynne to call a provincial election. Then Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid and Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault joined the production, which catalyzed another response from O'Leary, then another response from Duguid.

This entire episode feels vaguely like watching a couple anemic cats fight over chicken bones in an alley, where you close the window after a while so you don't have to hear the dying sounds.

O'Leary undoubtedly loves this stuff; the attention helps to solidify his position as the front-runner in the "overhyped" category of the Conservative leadership race. And Wynne's abysmal approval rating is just an added benefit for O'Leary if the adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is indeed proven true.

But the tactic is also a familiar and historically fruitful one for the Ontario Liberals: find a menacing conservative threat — real or perceived, it doesn't matter — and attack. In Liberal-red Ontario, voters have proven time and time again they are willing to overlook just about anything (remember when Kathleen Wynne won a majority in an election where the Ontario Provincial Police were investigating her government?) when faced with an unpalatable conservative alternative.

Wynne vs. Harper

Last election, Wynne chose Stephen Harper as her campaign bogeyman, attributing the province's dire financial situation to nickel-and-diming on the part of the federal government. She lumped her actual election rival, PC Leader Tim Hudak, in with Harper, asking, "How can Ontarians trust Tim Hudak to confront Stephen Harper when he shares so many of his values, ideals and policies?"

Hudak was a pretty good bogeyman in his own right the election before that, when he was cast by the Liberals (and their union allies) as a homophobic Bay Street puppet who was unfit to govern in progressive Ontario. And the election before that, the bogeyman was less a person than it was the <whisper> creeping Islamization of Ontario </whisper>, which the McGuinty Liberals framed more politely as a rejection of rival candidate John Tory's proposal to publicly fund religious schools in the province.

This is the Liberals' way of trying to change the subject from their record in office. (Stacey Janzer/CBC)

With Wynne's approval rating now as bad as it's ever been, and another byelection on the horizon, the Ontario Liberals can't exactly proceed with campaigning on their record. But they can attempt to reframe the conversation around something more disastrous than decades-long energy contracts and Election Act charges: a loudmouth Conservative shill who doesn't understand the needs and wants of everyday Ontarians. This is the Liberals' way of saying: I know we're on the outs, Ontario, but remember: we can protect you from these guys.

Unfortunately, that message is conveyed through what is possibly the most irritating exercise in contemporary political discourse — the open letter — which has ignited a seemingly never-ending cycle of back and forth. We should really leave the last word to the Beaverton, which published its own open letter to both Wynne and O'Leary: "Will the two of you please shut up?"

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