First, she found herself in Doug Ford’s firing line. Now, Andrea Horwath increasingly finds herself the target of Liberals attacks, too.As the third-place party in the legislature finds itself consistently running a solid second in polls, the NDP leader is fending off both the leading Progressive Conservatives and Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals in the run-up to the June 7 election.“It’s no doubt a sign of shifting polls and a recognition that the contest is shaping up differently in different parts of the province,” said Sean Speer of the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance.“Northern Ontario is a good example – there are various parts of the region where the PCs’ main opponent may be the NDP rather than the Liberals,” said Speer, who is director of the Ontario 360 Project, a website that looks at provincial election issues in detail.Read more: An NDP government would make hydro public again, end off-peak pricing, Horwath says in SudburyDoug Ford accuses opponents of ‘playing politics’ over his controversial comments about immigrationThe four candidates wanting to be Ontario’s next premier, and what they’re promising“The NDP is going to face more scrutiny than it usually does, including its policies and its candidates. This is a real test. How realistic is its agenda? Have its candidates said non-mainstream things online and elsewhere?“The next week may well determine if Andrea Horwath and her team are ready for prime time.”On Friday at the leaders’ Northern debate in Parry Sound, the PCs accused a Kingston-area NDP candidate of being an anti-mining activist and radical environmentalist — something Ford mentioned several times during the hour-long event. Horwath told the audience that Ramsay Hart is now a food-bank executive.Ford continued his attacks on Saturday, saying the party is no better than the Liberals who have governed ...
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