The central problem with the Ontario election campaign is still the fundamental lack of disagreement between the candidates — on what our priorities should be (health care, housing, education, gridlock) and on how to fix them (government spending, and lots of it). Monday night’s leaders’ debate evinced this problem in spades.

The Tories, Liberals, New Democrats and Greens are all promising you access to primary medical care within four or five years. They’re all promising to ramp up housing starts. They’re all concerned about law and order. They’re all concerned about the affordability of everyday life, about poverty and soaring food bank usage. They all want to spend great gobs of money fixing the problems.