Kathleen Wynne has already admitted she won't be premier after Thursday's vote, but she remains confident that the Liberals will win several ridings in southwestern Ontario.
The Liberal leader was joined by four local candidates while on a stop at health food eatery Margo and Tuffy in London Tuesday afternoon. Wynne told her supporters, who packed the tiny Adelaide St. restaurant, that the Liberals have "great" candidates in southwestern Ontario.
"I know that we are going to see a good result in this region," said Wynne. "I don't know where it is going to be, I don't know exactly what the numbers are going to be but you've got good, strong people running in this region. I hope everyone will look very carefully at them before they go to the polling station."
With polls putting the Liberals in third place, Wynne added that it is important that Ontarians stop a majority government from being formed by voting in her candidates who could keep the Tories and NDP in check.
"We need to make sure there are Liberals at Queen's Park because quite frankly, having a majority Conservative government under Doug Ford or a majority NDP government under Andrea Horwath carries a lot of risks. Both of them carry a lot of risks," said Wynne. "We need to make sure there are good strong Liberals there from London, from southwestern Ontario, from all across the province so that the conversation that happens in the legislature at Queen's Park is about the whole province."
Wynne also used the stop to once again take aim at Ford's hand-picked candidate for London West Andrew Lawton. She stated a simple Google search would have brought Lawton's past controversial remarks to Ford's attention and took issue with the PC leader's decision to keep him on the ballot.
"That is not something we would have ever predicted in this province as recently as a couple of years ago -- to have someone who was as divisive, as Islamophobic, as misogynist, to have that kind of permission for those kinds of attitudes. I think we all have to be very vigilant and say, 'That is so not ok. It is not acceptable to any of us in London or anywhere else in the province,'" said Wynne'"
Lawton addressed his behaviour in a statement on May 7, in which he blamed the comments in question on his struggle with mental illness.
Those in attendance during Wynne's second London visit of the campaign included Ontario Liberal campaign chair Deb Matthews, Elgin-Middlesex-London Liberal candidate Carlie Forsythe, London-Fanshawe Liberal candidate Lawvin Hadisi, London North Centre Liberal candidate Kate Graham, and London West Liberal candidate Jonathan Hughes.
The Liberals have been in power for 15 years and need to win at least eight seats to retain official party status.