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The early call also prevents third party advertisers from spending millions in the lead up to the vote. During the 11-week campaign they can only spend around $400,000.

Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Trudeau enters the race running third but within striking distance in many polls. Seat-rich Ontario, which got 15 of the 30 new seats in play in this election, will be a key battleground, and Wynne is already pitching a Trudeau government as friendlier to Ontarians.

“At the end of the day what we need is a prime minister who will work with the people of Ontario and not oppose them as Prime Minister Stephen Harper has done,” she said, citing the federal government’s refusal to help implement the province’s new Ontario Retirement Pension Plan.

The campaign will change a lot

Now that the writs are being drawn up, Wynne also said she expects the federal party’s chances to improve as the race, its leaders and their ideas draw more attention.

“The campaign will change a lot,” she said.

But the Ontario Liberals support could also bite the federal parties, as some have already suggested. The new sex ed curriculum and the planned sale of 60 per cent of Hydro One are two provincial policies some say could bleed into the federal campaign. But Wynne said the updated curriculum — which hadn’t been touched since 1998 — was necessary and something the federal party supports.

“I know that we will have full support of federal Liberal candidates on that one,” she said.

NDP leader Thomas Mulcair enters the race with a recent surge in the polls and with many wondering if he will form his party’s first federal government. But to do so, he needs to break through in Ontario, where the provincial party enjoyed a recent boost in the polls off of the New Democrats’ win in Alberta and opposition to the Hydro One sale.