After weeks of battling Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, Kathleen Wynne took aim at front-running NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair to boost Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.

Appearing with Trudeau at a packed and sweltering rally Monday night in Toronto’s Regent Park, the Liberal premier said Mulcair, who leads in nearly every public-opinion poll, “talks a good game on child care and on increasing the minimum wage and abolishing the Senate.”

“But when you look at what he’s talking about, the ideas are either incomplete or they’re unworkable or they’re impossible,” she told about 600 party stalwarts gathered at the Daniels Spectrum on Dundas St. East.

“He’s all over the map — that’s not a clear, workable plan,” said Wynne, who was re-elected in the June 2014 Ontario vote with Trudeau’s help and is repaying the favour.

“I know where Justin Trudeau stands — he wants to grow the middle class, he wants to make sure that the wealthy pay their fair share, he wants to supports the people who need it the most and he is going to work with the provinces and the territories.”

Visibly energized by the large and raucous crowd, Trudeau said Harper “has gone out of his way to attack Kathleen . . . particularly on pensions — it’s completely irresponsible.”

In contrast to his Conservative rival, who has vowed to derail Wynne’s Ontario Retirement Pension Plan that takes effect in 2017, the Liberal leader pledged to work with provincial and territorial premiers for the greater good of the federation.

“If the prime minister had been doing his job over the past 10 years to secure Canadians’ retirement, to work with the provinces . . . well, then, Kathleen wouldn’t be doing his job on top of her job.”

The premier’s surprise partisan broadside at Mulcair came even though he is a former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister whose views on improving public pensions, funding transit, and curbing climate change are similar to hers.

In an interview with the Star last month — before the writ was dropped — Wynne suggested she could work with Mulcair if he wins the Oct. 19 election.

“I need a federal partner,” she said, lamenting Harper’s unwillingness to work with Ontario — especially on pensions.

But Trudeau, who earlier in the day was in suburban Ajax touting tax cuts for the middle class and promising a tax-exempt monthly child benefit for parents, insisted Mulcair “certainly doesn’t get it.”

“He has no plan to grow the economy. He says he wants to help, but he hasn’t demonstrated the willingness or the capacity to do this,” he said, suggesting the NDP leader isn’t stepping up for the middle class because “maybe he’s afraid of Conservative attack ads.”

“Let me tell you something, I’m not,” Trudeau said to howls of laughter from the partisan throng.

“Stephen Harper has spent millions upon millions of dollars trying to tear us down and he’s going to spend millions upon millions of dollars more between now and Oct. 19 to try and convince Canadians that better isn’t just possible,” he said. “Together, my friends, we are going to prove him wrong.”

NDP MP Malcolm Allen (Welland) said he was stunned by Wynne’s onslaught against Mulcair.

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“I was taken aback by the Premier’s attack this evening given her earlier comments about building a stronger federal partnership with Ottawa – exactly what Tom Mulcair is offering to do with all the provinces,” said Allen, adding Wynne may be trying to deflect from “difficulties” like the Sudbury byelection police probe and the Hydro One sell-off.

“I hope the premier will rise above this partisanship and focus on fulfilling her responsibilities to the people of Ontario.”

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