The governing Ontario Liberals huddle this Super Bowl weekend to design plays for a June 7 election without knowing who will be quarterbacking the flailing Progressive Conservatives.Premier Kathleen Wynne and hundreds of Liberals will be at the Westin Harbour Castle for their final annual general meeting before the spring campaign.While Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats are a known commodity, the Liberals will not learn their other main opponent until the Tories elect a new leader on March 10.Former MPP Christine Elliott, ex-mayoral runner-up Doug Ford, and rookie Tory candidates Caroline Mulroney and Rod Phillips are vying to replace Patrick Brown, who resigned after a sexual impropriety scandal Jan. 25.When asked about her potential rivals earlier this week, Wynne said: “I can’t control any of what’s happening across the floor.“It is really up to the other parties to manage their own houses,” said the premier, who will deliver a major speech Saturday after Toronto Argonauts’ Grey Cup-winning coach Marc Trestman gives Liberals a pep talk on overcoming long odds.“We all know that there’s lots of political discussion about what’s going on in the other party, but, again, that’s not core to what we are going to be talking about this weekend,” she said.Privately, Liberal strategists had looked forward to tackling the untried and untested Brown, who they planned to paint as a flip-flopper on social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.They have spent weeks picking holes in the Tories’ 147-promise platform, the “People’s Guarantee,” and are now unsure what the other team’s playbook will be.Not that the Liberals are lamenting the chaos on the opposing side.“It’s kind of hard to say you’re ready to govern the province when your own interim leader (Vic Fedeli) says there’s ‘rot in your own party,” said one senior Grit, speaking o ...
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