Ontario Votes Roundup: The gloves are off, but did anyone land a punch?

The Ontario campaign lurches into its second week and it’s not immediately clear if anything has changed for Doug Ford’s re-election chances.

Barrage of “opposition research” sees Del Duca turf candidates, Ford stick by Lecce. Del Duca finds a big old target on his back. Is this thing really about “affordability” or nah?

Alex Boutilier: Welcome to Global News’ Ontario Votes Roundup, your increasingly desperate-for-news recap of the week that was in Ontario’s 43rd general election.

Each week Global’s Queen’s Park Bureau Chief Colin D’Mello and I attempt to make sense of the politics, policy and polling as Ontarians prepare to make their choice at the ballot box on June 2.

This was a busy week – Steven Del Duca released the Liberal platform on Monday, we had the Northern Debate on Tuesday, and a barrage of opposition research was released to try and destabilize the campaigns. And Doug Ford – facing renewed criticism of dodging scrutiny by dodging reporters after the debate – held not one, but two media avails!

Colin, we’ve got a lot to get to, so let’s get your impressions off the top. What mattered on the campaign trail this week?

Colin D’Mello: After a sleepy start to the campaign last week, the parties began deploying their opposition research this week in an attempt to snipe off as many candidates before the nomination deadline.

The Ontario Liberals ended up being the big losers of the week, having to turf three candidates in total which means they won’t be able to run a full slate of 124 candidates and are facing questions about their verification process.

What I found to be interesting is how each parties treated allegations around candidates.