NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who holds the balance of power in Ontario’s minority legislature, is playing down the chance of a spring election.

In the wake of a narrow NDP byelection victory in Niagara Falls on Thursday and a Progressive Conservative win in Thornhill, a subdued Horwath hedged on whether her party would continue to prop up Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals.

“The other two leaders might talk about elections all the time and whether or not they want an election or they don’t. What I’m going to talk about is the priorities of Ontarians,” she told reporters at Queen’s Park on Friday.

“We’re going to be focused not on election fever like the other two . . . may be. That’s the message from last night.”

Wynne, whose party suffered losses in both contests, also sounded as if she were not especially keen to face voters soon.

“I know there will be a general election . . . I don’t know when there will be a general election,” she said on a campaign-style swing through Cambridge.

“We are in a minority parliament. Many, many people in the media and beyond didn’t think I was going to be standing today a year later. We’ll see. We are going to develop a budget. In the meantime, folks, I am going to continue to do my job.”

Her comments run counter the private bravado of some Liberals that the government could engineer its own defeat after Finance Minister Charles Sousa’s spring budget to control the timing of an election.

Many Grits are fed up being beholden to the NDP, which has propped them up for the past two years in exchange for budget concessions.

The demeanour of both Wynne and Horwath contrasted with that of a feisty Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, who stepped up his anti-union attacks after losing Niagara Falls to a labour-backed New Democrat.

While Hudak was relieved his party held Thornhill on Thursday, the loss in Niagara Falls, which includes his hometown of Fort Erie, was personally wounding.

“This is all about the union elite who are running the show. Give me a level playing field in Niagara Falls and we win that seat,” he complained Friday.

“It’s a PC seat. But when you give that oversized influence to ‘big labour,’ they buy influence with members.”

Hudak is eager to hit the hustings and wants a provincial election this spring, but he needs Horwath’s backing to topple Wynne.

In Niagara Falls, the NDP’s Wayne Gates, a city councillor and president of Unifor Local 199, won a seat held for a decade by Liberal Kim Craitor.

Gates beat former two-term Conservative MPP Bart Maves, a regional councillor and Hudak friend, by 962 votes. The New Democrat had 39.4 per cent to 36.8 per cent for Maves.

Despite Wynne making more than $100 million of campaign promises, including money for a new hospital and a five-year wine industry strategy, Liberal city councillor Joyce Morocco finished a distant third with 19.4 per cent of the vote. The Greens’ Clarke Bitter was fourth with 2.7 per cent.

The NDP was helped by Hudak’s controversial “right-to-work” proposal, which would eliminate the Rand Formula requiring those in unionized workplaces to pay dues regardless of whether they join.

Despite that, Hudak launched a website critical of Working Families, a coalition of anti-Tory unions that spent $2.1 million to defeat him in the 2011 election.

The new site, workingfamiliesexposed.ca, is an indication he plans on running against what he derides as “union elites” in the next election.

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

Martow garnered 48 per cent of the vote to 41.5 per cent for Yeung Racco, 6.8 per cent for Hackelberg, and 1.4 per cent for Pun.

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After the byelections, the 107-member legislature will have 49 Liberals, including Speaker Dave Levac, 37 Tories, and 21 New Democrats.

The house resumes Tuesday for the first time since Dec. 12.

Wynne, who succeeded Dalton McGuinty a year ago last Tuesday, has lost five of the last seven byelections, four in previously Liberal ridings.

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