No striking workers — including teachers — would be legislated back to work if an NDP government is elected June 7, New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath says.

“It’s a pretty heavy hammer...it’s very much against our values,” Horwath said Tuesday, citing her party’s labour roots in a wide-ranging, one-hour session with the Star’s editorial board streamed live on the internet, including questions from readers.

She also addressed a $1.4 billion “error” in the NDP’s platform, concerns about the party’s ability to govern, her plan to buy back Hydro One, standardized testing in schools and lessons learned from Ontario’s only New Democrat government under Bob Rae, soundly defeated after one term.

“The most important piece is that this isn’t 1990. It’s a completely different environment and this is a completely different election. And I’m certainly not Bob Rae,” Horwath said.

“People can read into that what they like.”

The NDP leader has been gaining momentum in the June 7 election campaign, outpacing Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals to grab second place behind Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford in a number of polls.

A new Ipsos Public Affairs online poll of 1,000 Ontarians conducted for Global News between Friday and Monday shows Horwath at 37 per cent, Ford at 36 with Wynne at 23 per cent. It has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The improved fortunes of the New Democrats have put Horwath, her platform and candidates under increased scrutiny from rival parties. Voters seem to be checking her out as an alternative to Ford, who is offering cuts to gasoline and income taxes and unspecified cuts to government spending of $6 billion.

Horwath said back-to-work legislation, particularly with public-sector workers, can be avoided with better funding of the education system, for example.

“If we had been better funding these institutions, we wouldn’t have the labour strife that we have,” added Horwath, whom the Liberals slammed in a press release Tuesday for blocking back-to-work legislation two weeks ago to end a strike at York University.

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“While no one wants or likes to order parties back to work, the public interest sometimes demands the government’s leadership when all else fails,” said a statement from the Liberal campaign.

Horwath added “I can’t imagine that there would be” a scenario where back-to-work legislation would be used, as Wynne’s government did last fall to end a community college strike that put the term at risk for tens of thousands of students. Horwath and her caucus voted against the legislation.

The NDP leader who represents Hamilton Centre blamed the government for moves that “tightened up” funding for colleges and universities and said back-to-work legislation abrogates the constitutional rights of workers to free collective bargaining.

In past years, the New Democrats have voted against sending striking TTC workers back to their jobs, but now that the transit agency has been deemed an essential service, Horwath said she would not restore the right to strike.

One of the 200 questions received from Star readers zeroed in on the accounting error in Horwath’s platform, which involved a $700 million reserve fund counted as revenue instead of an expense.

“We regret it, absolutely,” Horwath replied. “What we didn’t do is pretend that it didn’t happen and what we didn’t do is try to spin our way out of it.”

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Horwath, however, did not admit the mistake until Sunday. On Saturday in Thunder Bay she tried to deflect questions on it, saying “I don’t have specifics.”

She acknowledged the accounting error will “leave people worried about the deficit,” which would rise to almost $4.8 billion from a projected $3.3 billion in the first year.

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“This makes things a little bit harder than what we had initially anticipated,” she acknowledged, promising to forge ahead with her promises such as ending “hallway medicine” in hospitals.

Horwath admitted her plan to buy back the 47 per cent of shares the Wynne government sold in Hydro One, now worth about $6.4 billion, with $248.5 million in annual dividends from the remaining shares is ambitious.

“Nobody thinks this is going to be easy…it’s not going to be a quick effort,” she said. “It depends on the share price.”

She also signalled standardized testing in schools has gone too far and needs to be scaled back because there is too much focus on “teaching to the test.”

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