A regular collection of tales from the campaign trail.

Politics makes strange bedfellows.

So it would appear with former Mississauga mayor “Hurricane” Hazel McCallion, who endorsed local Liberal MPP Charles Sousa and Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives on Thursday.

“Charles is a strong leader who delivers for Mississauga,” said McCallion. “He has fought hard to protect our waterfront, expand our hospitals and enhance public transit. We need him.”

A few hours later, in a video released online as Ford was dealing with accusations of a questionable party nomination in Etobicoke Centre, McCallion took aim at the debt the Liberal government racked up during Sousa’s tenure as finance minister.

“The Liberals have admitted everything hasn’t been perfect in Kathleen Wynne’s Ontario. Well, that’s one way of putting it,” she said. “Doug has committed to fixing Ontario’s finances.”

Ford has yet to release a full platform costing out his promises, including $6 billion in government spending cuts, and lower income and gasoline taxes.

Wynne said “it’s no secret” she and McCallion didn’t agree on some things. “She has been asking me for two years to open up the Greenbelt and I’ve said a firm no,” the Liberal leader said.

“I can see why she would find Doug Ford an attractive candidate.”

Ford was videotaped promising developers he’d open up some Greenbelt land but backtracked after it was made public.

A tale of two economies

Kathleen Wynne invoked Victorian author Charles Dickens during a campaign stop at the modern downtown Toronto offices of Wattpad, a website where writers post their work to be read and critiqued by other users.

"When I came in … the first thing that came to my mind is that this is what Charles Dickens did in terms of writing chapters and capturing people’s imagination," she said Thursday, adding that the 1800s model of publishing novels in instalments was one of Wattpad’s models, “one of the inspirations. It’s a beautiful connection from a very old economy to a new economy where we are doing things differently, finding new opportunities.”

Wattpad is used by about 65 million people around the world, “writing, reading, editing, commenting — and that is an amazing business that we couldn't have imagined even 20 years ago,” Wynne added. “That’s how rapidly things are changing.”

No comment on whether the Liberals think these are the best — or worst — of times.

A tale of too much red tape

Millionaire businessman Doug Ford says he will bring some businesslike discipline to Queen’s Park.

Ford, who runs the successful label company founded by his father, said if the Progressive Conservatives are elected June 7, the province will offer a new “customer service guarantee.”

That will mean a “single window” access point for all provincial approvals to launch a business.

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“For every ministry and every agency, there will be one phone number and one website that you can access in order to get all of the approvals you need to create jobs — no guesswork or expensive lobbying required,” Ford said in Tillsonburg.

And he promised a one-year “hard deadline” for approvals, so businesses aren’t left in limbo.

“If a project won’t be approved, then tell people so they can move on,” he said. “Don’t leave them hanging.”

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