Premier Kathleen Wynne’s minority Liberals have been dealt a blow, losing byelections to the Progressive Conservatives in Thornhill and the New Democrats in Niagara Falls.

Victories on Thursday by the two opposition parties could embolden them to topple Wynne’s government in a confidence vote over the provincial budget expected in late March or early April, triggering a spring election.

Bring it on, said the defiant premier.

“This is a hard night — we’re not going to pretend that it’s not. Whatever has happened in these byelections tonight is not reflective of what’s going to happen in the general election,” Wynne told Grits in Thornhill.

“The Conservatives want to tear down what has been built . . . (and) the NDP do not have a plan. I know that people are looking for change in this province. Well, I’m the change,” she said, in an apparent reference to former premier Dalton McGuinty, who she succeeded one year ago this week.

In Thornhill, which had been held by Progressive Conservative Peter Shurman, Tory Gila Martow, an optometrist, defeated Liberal Sandra Yeung Racco, a local councillor and wife of former Grit MPP Mario Racco. The NDP’s Cindy Hackelberg was third followed by the Green Party’s Teresa Pun.

With all 280 polls reporting, Martow had 48 per cent to 41.5 per cent for Yeung Racco, 6.8 per cent for Hackelberg and 1.4 per cent for Pun.

“This evening’s results prove that the people of this province want change,” said a delighted Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak at a banquet hall near Dufferin and Centre Sts.

Martow, who stands “nearly 5-foot-1,” joked she might need a high chair when she gets to the legislature, though she’s sure she’ll be heard at Queen’s Park.

“You can ask my four kids. I already know how to yell.”

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s successful visit to Israel last month was a major boost to her fortunes in a riding where 40 per cent of residents are Jewish.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Employment Minister Jason Kenney, two of Harper’s brightest stars, actively campaigned for Martow.

But Tory hopes of winning Niagara Falls — part of which was once represented by Hudak, the Niagara West-Glanbrook MPP, before redistribution — fell just short.

New Democrat Wayne Gates, a city councillor and president of Unifor Local 199, won the seat that had been represented for a decade by Liberal Kim Craitor.

Gates staved off Tory Bart Maves, a regional councillor and two-term Tory MPP until Craitor beat him in 2003.

Polls had suggested Gates would win a landslide, but Maves kept it close as many traditional Liberal voters defected to the Tories to stop the NDP.

Even though Wynne made more than $100 million in promises — including a five-year, $75-million wine industry and seed money for a new hospital — and kept the struggling Fort Erie Racetrack open, Liberal candidate and city councillor Joyce Morocco finished a distant third. The Greens’ Clarke Bitter was fourth.

With all 263 polls reporting, Gates had 39.4 per cent to 36.8 per cent for Maves, 19.4 per cent for Morocco, and 2.7 per cent for Bitter.

Saddled with a sagging local economy and the highest unemployment rate in the province, voters in Niagara Falls were clearly looking beyond the governing Grits.

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While the Tories’ Maves led in the first public-opinion poll, his party’s controversial “right-to-work” proposal was exploited by the NDP.

To allow for “worker choice,” the Conservatives want to scrap the Rand Formula that requires those in unionized workplaces to pay dues regardless of whether they join the union.

Hudak doubled-down on a risky strategy that has divided Tories, thundering Thursday night against “the willingness of the Liberals and NDP to side with and protect special-interest unions rather than Ontario families.”

In an obvious reference to Hudak’s attack on his union affiliation, Gates told the crowd in Niagara Falls: “I work for some very special interests — you.”

An ebullient NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said voters rejected the Tory attacks and joked that they cast ballots for the “best damned moustache in Ontario.”

Ontario Federation of Labour president Sid Ryan gloated that the Niagara Falls contest should send a signal to Tory MPPs.

“Hudak’s embarrassing defeat in his own backyard gives Tory backbenchers the ammunition they need to pound home the message that undermining workers’ rights will cost them dearly at the polls,” said Ryan.

His anti-labour message “backfired in a major way,” he said. “It certainly turned off the voters.”

The byelections do not radically change the political landscape at Queen’s Park.

In the 107-member legislature, the Liberals have 49 MPPs, including Speaker Dave Levac, the Tories will have 37, and the NDP 21 once the two rookies are formerly sworn in.

The legislature, which rose for Christmas on Dec. 12, resumes Tuesday. Thursday’s byelections fell two days after Wynne marked her first anniversary since being sworn in to succeed McGuinty, who was re-elected in 2011 with 53 seats.

She has lost five of seven byelections in that time, four in ridings that had been Liberal-held.

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