At this point in the political cycle, Ontario’s Liberals ought by all rights to be on the ropes. After 11 years in power they are dragging a clanking chain of mismanagement and scandals behind them. Another party, with an inspiring leader and fresh vision, ought to be a shoo-in next Thursday.

But it hasn’t turned out that way. Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals have a fighting chance to win a fresh mandate — a tribute to her political skills and personal integrity. More importantly, despite the weighty baggage of the past, Wynne and her party still offer Ontario’s voters the best choice for the future.

In the 16 months since she took over as premier and Liberal leader, Wynne has charted a new course and disavowed the costly mistakes of her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty. More importantly, she has put forward an ambitious, progressive agenda that speaks to real needs — pension reform, funding for transit in the gridlocked GTA, home care, unlocking the potential of northern resources and more.

These are important goals. They reflect a belief that government — with all its flaws — can still be the way we harness our collective desire to accomplish positive things. They are worthy of support.

When deciding whom to back next Thursday, voters must compare Wynne and her party to the real-life alternatives in front of them. And here she comes off looking even better.

In their different ways, Tim Hudak and Andrea Horwath have both booted the opportunity to be the fresh, inspiring leader who in another scenario might easily have pushed the tired Liberals aside.

Hudak and his Progressive Conservatives might have built on Ontarians’ anxieties about slow growth and mounting government debt and anger at the McGuinty-era scandals to offer a positive vision for the future.

Instead, Hudak bet everything on his signature “million jobs plan,” a fantasy scheme that economists from both right and left have laughed out of the room. But it’s no joke: Hudak would slash 100,000 positions from the public sector, and given that he promises to exempt doctors, nurses and police from the cuts the axe would inevitably fall heaviest on education and social services.

All this in order to balance the province’s budget in two years, not three as the Liberals and New Democrats promise. Economists Scott Clark and Peter DeVries calculate that would mean cuts big enough to reduce provincial GDP by 1.6 to 2 per cent within two years. That kind of austerity “would lead to a loss in output and jobs.” So much for Hudak’s million jobs.

At least give Hudak marks for being upfront with voters. Andrea Horwath’s NDP has been the biggest disappointment of this campaign. She sparked the election by refusing to support Wynne’s progressive budget, then took refuge in tired populist rhetoric about cutting government “waste.”

The NDP’s platform is a grab-bag of pocketbook items like cutting HST from hydro bills and trimming auto insurance. Mysteriously, it fails to endorse the Liberals’ plan for an Ontario pension plan — something Horwath herself proposed only four years ago. Just what does the NDP stand for these days? Even many of its traditional supporters are bewildered.

That leaves Wynne and the Liberals, whose stillborn budget sets out a reasonable and balanced way forward for the province.

It includes $15 billion to fight gridlock in Greater Toronto and Hamilton — the key issue for Ontario’s economic heartland. Another $1 billion to support resource development in the northern Ring of Fire region, and money to back job creation in key sectors.

Despite heavy financial pressures on the government, the Liberal plan also includes $810 million to create desperately needed programs for developmentally delayed children and adults. Front-line home-care workers would get a substantial raise — a boost to starved sectors that are fundamental to Ontario families.

And instead of threatening cuts to education, as Hudak does, Wynne promises to continue investments in early learning, make improvements in lagging math scores and continue offering financial help for university and college tuition.

She has also taken the bold step of proposing a made-in-Ontario pension plan aimed at supplementing the rock-solid but inadequate Canada Pension Plan. Expanding the CPP across the country would have been the best solution, but Wynne deserves credit for taking action in the absence of federal leadership.

The new spending means Ontario’s worrisome $12.5-billion budget deficit will increase before, as Wynne insists, it disappears by 2017-18. This is a tall order, and to make sure it happens a Liberal government will have to be both lucky with the economy and make its own tough, unpopular decisions on spending. Voters deserve clearer answers than they’ve been getting on how the Liberals intend to square this circle.

But the Liberal plan at least has the merit of not fetishizing the deficit to the point of slashing important government services or, worse, knocking the economy off the track to recovery.

That’s especially important in a province that — as Wynne often reminds voters — actually spends less per person on programs and services than any other in Canada. Expensive boondoggles like the eHealth mess and a billion dollars to relocate a pair of gas plants dominate the headlines. But day-to-day, Ontario runs a lean government (at least compared to other provinces) — and the kind of cuts bandied about by Hudak are bound to hurt real services and real people.

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The leaders have agreed on almost nothing in this campaign — except that the two leading parties offer voters an unusually clear choice.

They can follow Hudak’s Conservatives in their lurch to the right, betting that less government, skimpier services and lower wages will get Ontario’s economy moving.

Or they can resist the rush toward austerity at all cost and give Wynne’s Liberals a chance to put their plan into action. Based on her record over the past 16 months, we believe Wynne has earned that opportunity.

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