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How do we get there? If he has any idea, he’s not telling. He has sentiments, not policies. The Tory leader’s favourite technique, on being asked what he’d do about some problem, was to answer the opposite question.

How would he deal with the neighbourhood-safety issues associated with supervised drug-injection sites and new marijuana stores?

“My friend, what I’m not going to do, I’m not going to have injection sites in neighbourhoods,” he said.

How would he improve transit in Toronto? “What we won’t be doing is feathering anybody’s nest.”

Wynne’s campaign theme is “Care, not cuts,” and she tried mightily to get Ford to talk about how he’d remove billions from Ontario’s $150-billion budget without anybody noticing.

“It is not possible to cut $6 billion out of government services and not hurt people,” she told him.

Whatever, yes it is, Ford said. I go around Ontario and everyone thinks so. Unlike the other two, he asserted, he’s helped run a government, so he knows what he’s doing. Which is bizarre — he was a city councillor in Toronto for one term, yes, but Horwath was a Hamilton councillor for three terms and has been an MPP since 2004. Wynne’s been a school trustee, an MPP since 2003, holder of major cabinet posts, and the premier of Ontario for five years.

“Kathleen, you got a nice smile on your face there,” Ford told Wynne at one point.

On camera, that smile appeared instantly to freeze.

“So do you, Doug,” Wynne said after an eternity. Moderator Cynthia Mulligan remarked that it was the nicest moment in the debate. It was just an eyebrow-twitch from a homicide.

The election is in one month.

dreevely@postmedia.com

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