Ottawa Morning voter panel: election between ‘best of three evils’

From left: retired developer Don Anderson, communications officer Shelina Merani and restaurant owner Ron Spirito make up Ottawa Morning's Ontario election voters panel.

Ontario voters don’t have an appealing option after the opening days of the provincial election campaign, according to two members of the Ottawa Morning voters panel.

The first weekly panel put together retired developer Don Anderson, who said he usually votes Liberal, restaurant owner Ron Spirito, who said he voted Progressive Conservative in the 2011 provincial election but has voted Liberal before, and communications officer Shelina Merani, a supporter of the New Democratic Party.

Both Anderson and Spirito told host Hallie Cotnam they’re not exactly enthused by NDP leader Andrea Horwath, PC leader Tim Hudak or Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne.

“I don’t really like any of (the platforms),” Spirito said.

“(Horwath) is not ready for prime time, (Wynne) is a great talker and has spent a lot of money and when you look at (Hudak’s) plan, he wants to create a million jobs over the next eight years but there’s not a lot of substance to that plan right now either.

“I’m picking the best of the three evils (Hudak) because we have to stop spending the amount of money that we’re spending.”

“What we’re looking at is that none of these candidates, for a number of reasons, are in a good position,” said Anderson.

“I went to see what Kathleen Wynne had to say… she’s a very effective speaker, she presents a lot of credibility, I want to see how Hudak has improved his public presence because the last couple of times I’ve seen him he wasn’t that strong in front of a crowd.

“Unfortunately I think Horwath and the NDP don’t have the wave behind them to make an effective candidate.”

To hear the panel’s thoughts on how to cut into Ontario’s debt and the level of engagement they’ve been seeing so far, listen to the full interview in the audio player.