Voters in two provincial byelections shouldn't trust Premier Dalton McGuinty or reward the Liberals with a majority government, the opposition parties warned Thursday.

McGuinty's comments this week that the government's fights with public sector unions over a wage freeze would be behind us sooner rather than later were a code to labour leaders, said Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak.

The premier's telling the unions the Liberals will go back to their big-spending ways if they can get a majority by winning Thursday's byelections in Vaughan and Kitchener-Waterloo, he said.

``That's clearly a wink and a nudge to the public sector unions,'' he said. ``Dalton McGuinty is saying, help me get through this byelection and then happy days will be here again.''

If McGuinty was serious about curbing spending, he would have adopted the Tories' advice to legislate an immediate pay freeze for all public sector workers, Hudak added.

The Liberals are expected to hold on to Vaughan, the riding vacated by former finance minister Greg Sorbara, but Kitchener-Waterloo has turned into a close three-way race.

McGuinty engineered that riding's byelection by appointing Progressive Conservative Elizabeth Witmer to a $188,000 a year job as chair of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

Political scientist Barry Kay at Wilfrid Laurier University says the strategy turned into a ``negative factor'' with voters, and predicts the Liberals will not get their majority.

Hudak has been saying Kitchener-Waterloo was more of an Elizabeth Witmer seat than a Tory stronghold, insisting a loss would not hurt his leadership of the party.

The NDP are hoping for an upset in a riding they've never held, but say they're not in the race to ``humble'' the other two parties.

Veteran New Democrat Gilles Bisson said voters won't be fooled by the Liberals, who've done everything they can to distract them from the real issues.

The NDP are there to tell voters that they can do a good job for people in the riding, he said.

``And why should you ever give the government a majority considering the things that they're doing?'' Bisson said.

Both opposition parties say Liberals picked a fight with teachers and recalled the legislature for an emergency session to distract voters from the scandal at the Ornge air ambulance service and the $190-million cost of shutting down a generating station days before last fall's election to save Liberal seats in the Mississauga area.

``It was a very cynical ploy that people recognized for what it was, and I think voters of Kitchener-Waterloo were really disappointed that the government decided to go in that direction instead of addressing the real issues they have there,'' said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

``They do not want to reward a government that has behaved badly, that has bought seats in the last general election with the cancellation of the power plant, that has ignored precious tax dollars by allowing scandals to happen at eHealth and the Ornge air ambulance service.''

The Liberals' attempt to portray themselves as strong fiscal managers willing to get tough with teachers to make sure classes began as scheduled Sept. 4 - which teachers' unions had always said they would - backfired, benefiting the New Democrats in Kitchener-Waterloo.

``The teacher question was a factor, but I think it evolved in a direction that McGuinty didn't anticipate,'' said Kay.

Teachers angry with the Liberals and still not willing to support the Conservatives because of the Mike Harris years appear to have turned to the NDP's Catherine Fife, a former chair of the Ontario Public School Boards Association, making the byelection a true three-way race.

``In byelections, candidates matter a lot more than they do in general elections,'' added Kay.

Byelections are traditionally an opportunity for voters to show their displeasure with governments, and the Tories too will be able to explain away an NDP upset in Kitchener-Waterloo, said Kay.

``The Liberals can claim this wasn't a Liberal riding, and the Conservatives can claim that it wasn't really about Hudak because it was Witmer's riding, and both of those comments are true,'' he said.

``But there was an opportunity here, and I'm sure when McGuinty opened up that position for Witmer, he wasn't thinking 'well, here's a chance for the NDP to shine.'

(The Canadian Press)