Horwath tours southwestern Ontario as election enters final stretch

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is making a pitch in five southwestern Ontario ridings Monday as the provincial election heads into the home stretch. 

"People have a big decision to make," Horwath told reporters in London North Centre, which has been held by Liberal Deb Matthews since 2003. Matthews is not running in this election. 

"Everyone knows that this is a change election, people are done with Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals," Horwath said.

"Kathleen Wynne has given up the fight against Doug Ford and his cuts, against Doug Ford and his corruption. I'm not giving up that fight. I'm going to fight that fight right up until Thursday and hopefully on Friday we'll be in an Ontario where Doug Ford is no longer a factor." 

The NDP held two ridings in London going into the election — London West and London Fanshawe. 

Push on for southwest ridings

Horwath will also stop in other ridings, including the Oxford riding, in Woodstock, which has been a Tory riding since 1995. 

The other three ridings in which she's making speeches on Monday — Elgin-Middlesex-London, Sarnia-Lambton and Chatham-Kent-Leamington — are Conservative ridings that have swung for the Liberals in the past. 

"I proudly am putting myself out there day in and day out to show the people of Ontario that we can make life better," Horwath said. 

"We can really change things for the better for all Ontarians... This last week, our job is to talk to people about what kind of people they want." 

"I'm just as disappointed as everyone else when it comes to the privatization and cuts that Kathleen Wynne has made. She's made some bad choices and I have no interest in working with a leader or a party that wants to cut public services thinks it's okay to privatize our public assets and sell them off to private interests. I will not work with anybody that does that, so that rules out both the Conservatives and the Liberals."