Just because Donald Trump got away with lying about Hillary Clinton doesn’t mean that tactic will work in Ontario, warns Premier Kathleen Wynne.

“Last week, Patrick Brown made a statement about me that was false and defamatory,” Wynne told reporters Monday at Queen’s Park.

“In the days that followed, he, disappointingly, did not retract those comments,” said the premier, who has given Brown six weeks to apologize or she may launch a defamation suit against him.

“We’re going to govern ourselves by the timeline set by the Libel and Slander Act, and I think we’ll let the lawyers go through that process in the interim,” she said.

But Wynne, who publicly supported Clinton over Trump, made it clear that she did not wish to see a reprise of the tone of last year’s U.S. presidential election in the 2018 Ontario campaign.

“Let’s just hope and pray that that’s not the level of political debate that we’re going to have here in Ontario or in Canada. I deplore any behaviour that isn’t based on truth . . . that’s defamatory and doesn’t deal in honest interaction,” the premier said.

“And so, no matter who it is, whether it’s the president or whether it’s the leader of the opposition in Ontario, I don’t think that behaviour belongs in politics. There are lots of differing opinions without us descending into dishonesty and defamation,” she said.

Brown’s office reiterated Monday that the leader would continue to ignore Wynne’s legal threats, which he has repeatedly dismissed as “baseless.”

Last Tuesday, on the eve of her testimony as a Crown witness in the Sudbury byelection bribery case, the Tory chief said Ontario had “a sitting premier sitting in trial” and that Wynne “stands trial.”

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne says she wanted to take the witness stand Wednesday to be as “open as possible” at a bribery trial involving a former top adviser and a Liberal fundraiser. (The Canadian Press)

In fact, Patricia Sorbara, the premier’s former deputy chief of staff, and Liberal activist Gerry Lougheed are on trial for alleged Election Act violations related to the 2015 byelection. Both deny any wrongdoing.

Wynne’s lawyer, Jack Siegel, last Wednesday served Brown with a letter stating that he “made a statement about the premier of Ontario that is false and defamatory.”

“Contrary to your statement, Premier Wynne is not standing trial. Your statement is false and misleading and appears to have been made with the intention to harm the reputation of Ms. Wynne,” the lawyer wrote, giving the PC leader until 5 p.m. Thursday to apologize.

That deadline came and went and on Friday, the premier’s office said they would give Brown until Oct. 24 before determining their next course of action.

Senior Conservative officials insist the leader does not need to apologize, despite calls from newspaper editorialists and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, among others.

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But the gaffe has given the Liberals a golden opportunity to paint Brown as a Trumpian fabulist.

Deputy Premier Deb Matthews was the first to pounce on his snafu and draw the American parallel.

“There is a principle in Canada that you do not make defamatory, misleading comments about another political leader,” Matthews said last Thursday.

“In Canada, we actually expect people to be honest. There is, south of the border, a change in that culture. I do not want to see that change coming to Canada.”

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