Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne and NDP Leader Andrea HorwathFRANK GUNN, GALIT RODAN AND NATHAN DENETT/The Canadian Press
Nobody can ever predict exactly how party leaders will respond to the pressure of an election campaign's one night on stage together. Heading into the last Ontario's leaders' debate, for instance, Dalton McGuinty was generally expected to present himself as calm and reassuring; instead he surprised everyone with an uncharacteristically animated performance that involved so much gesticulation that "McGuinty's busy hands" briefly became a meme.
Still, with the three leaders who will participate in Tuesday evening's debate having been on the hustings for a month, it's possible to hazard at least a decent guess of what viewers will see from them – or at least, what their respective campaign teams will be aiming for and trying to avoid.
KATHLEEN WYNNE
The rookie premier's likability is generally considered her party's best asset at this point, and a good reason why despite their copious baggage the Liberals still have a decent chance of winning this election. But that doesn't mean there's no cause for Liberal nervousness about her performance in a format with which, unlike the other two leaders, she has no experience.
On the campaign trail, as previously, Ms. Wynne has tended to respond to questions with longer and more rambling answers than her opponents; in some cases she's clearly thinking aloud, and can be partway through before she settles on the point she wants to make.
While her relative aversion to talking points might play well with some viewers, potentially making her seem more human than her opponents, it could cause her to lose others if she starts speaking in bureaucratese. Even more nerve-wracking for her party is that she says something far off-message that her opponents can pounce on.
For those reasons, her advisers have been trying to get her to keep it as simple as possible. They also want her to avoid letting her competitive nature get the better of her and cause her to get too chippy in response to criticism, which could make her seem less premier-like.
As for substance, Ms. Wynne will need to strike a contrast to Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak by expressing some faith in government to help Ontario's economy and its people, without coming off too strident about it. While at some point she can be expected to accuse Andrea Horwath of abandoning her principles by declining to support this spring's left-leaning Liberal budget, recent communications suggest Ms. Wynne will do her best to ignore the NDP Leader in hope of framing the election as a choice between herself and Mr. Hudak.
TIM HUDAK
Conventional wisdom would be that Ms. Wynne, who fittingly will be standing in the middle position during the debate, will be under constant attack from the opposition leader on either side of her. But based on the way the campaign has played out, Mr. Hudak may be content to leave most of the heavy lifting on that front to Ms. Horwath.
It's not that Mr. Hudak's Tories have been giving the Liberals a free pass this campaign; in fact, they've been more successful than New Democrats in generating fresh stories about the Liberal record, including the MaRS bailout. But Mr. Hudak has tended to leave most of the negativity to others within his party, while trying to rise above the fray by talking about his own fiscal and economic agenda.
Ms. Wynne may in fact spend more time trying to put Mr. Hudak on the defensive than vice versa, by highlighting potential consequences of his plan to cut 100,000 broader public-sector jobs and the faulty math behind his promise of one million new jobs. If his performance to date is any indication, Mr. Hudak will all but refuse to acknowledge some criticism, instead looking straight into the camera and calmly standing by his promises and projections.
Meanwhile, he will almost certainly tell viewers that he's not trying to win a popularity contest, but instead levelling with them about the tough decisions their province needs to make.
As in recent days, Mr. Hudak may also try to soften his image a little by stressing his prioritization of core social programs such as those for children with special needs, and possibly alluding to his daughter's health struggles. The PC Leader has never been very comfortable getting personal publicly, but his campaign team seems to want him to do so.
ANDREA HORWATH
For the NDP Leader, even more than her counterparts, this is a make-or-break opportunity. If she takes advantage of having an equal platform, she could fight her way back into the campaign; if she's marginalized or ineffective, what has been a disappointing NDP campaign could become a disastrous one.
Unless she very dramatically changes her strategy from the past couple of weeks, she will try to make the most of it by launching a full-throttle assault on the ethics of Ms. Wynne's government, including accusing it of being "corrupt." The smiling version of Ms. Horwath that Ontarians saw during the 2011 leaders' debate could be replaced by a much more combative version.
While this "Steeltown Scrapper" image seems to play well in hard-hit southwestern Ontario, which the NDP has targeted for seat gains, it could come off unappealingly angry to a broader audience. But under the circumstances, Ms. Horwath seems disinclined to return to a less aggressive mode.
A challenge for Ms. Horwath may be to avoid the debate becoming dominated by the contrasting visions of Ms. Wynne and Mr. Hudak, given her own lack of bold platform planks to talk about. But she will try to make a virtue of the relative modesty of her own agenda, presenting herself as a common-sense leader focused on the achievable.
For all that Ms. Wynne may try to ignore her, there appears to be some genuine animosity between the Liberal Leader and Ms. Horwath. For those hoping for fireworks, exchanges between the two of them are the best prospect.
Adam Radwanski is The Globe's Ontario politics columnist.