Political excitement at the federal level may have evaporated faster than water in downtown Toronto, but the provincial scene is still very much alive this summer across Ontario.

Among this week’s highlights:

1. The Liberals scored a big endorsement from David Suzuki, whose foundation criticized the Ontario NDP last week.

2. The NDP played up their “Buy Ontario” platform. Which is a great idea, until the inevitable news story comes out that their lawn signs were made in Michigan, or some equally trivial offense.

3. Tim Hudak is promising to cut red tape – in fact, he’s willing to create a whole new ministerial office to do just that. I feel like that should have been a West Wing walk-and-talk, along the the lines of:

“So he wants to cut $30 million in government spending and waste in the Department of Agriculture. How’s he going to do that?”
“He’ll hire someone, staff him, and have him conduct an extensive review of all spending.”
“How much will that cost?”
“$35 million.”

I’m sure Aaron Sorkin would have a wittier way to go about it, but you get the point.

Still, Rob Ford rode the gravy train to victory, and Hudak has made the very clever promise to dock his own pay if he can’t de-gravy Queen’s Park. A pledge like that creates a sense that he’s serious and that it’s more than the usual political doublespeak.