Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
“This is a government, after all, that has in some cases responded to Don Drummond’s controversial review of public services by launching more reviews.”
- Adam Radwanski, The Globe and Mail, April 24, 2012
- Adam Radwanski, The Globe and Mail, April 24, 2012
QUEEN’S PARK – Hard pressed Ontarians face another in a string of economic setbacks with Tuesday’s budget deal – but the Ontario PC Caucus remains focused on a real plan to reduce the size and cost of government and strengthen our economy to create jobs, Leader Tim Hudak said today.
“I’d like to say I’m surprised by this ‘deal’, but I’m not,” Hudak said. “What I am concerned about is the direction of Ontario now that this budget will pass. The choice made by the Premier yesterday leads us further down the same failed path we have been on for the last eight years.”
That path, Hudak said, is strewn with more spending, more taxing and no plan to create a better climate for job creation. “It tinkers with small change when what we need is big change.”
In the Legislature, Hudak noted that the budget deal also violates two of the so-called “principles” the Premier said would guide his decision-making in buying NDP support.
“You said tax increases were out of the question,” Hudak recalled. “And you said that because of your massive deficits we can’t have any more new spending. And now you have broken both of these promises.
“Just because the McGuinty Liberals are so quick to toss their principles overboard doesn’t mean we are. And it doesn’t mean Ontarians are either.”
Hudak demanded an accounting from the Premier as to how many hundreds of millions of tax dollars this brokered budget would cost: “Earlier you had said the NDP proposals would cost $1 billion,” Hudak said. “Yesterday you accepted nearly all of them.
“Show us the price tag – and how much more you’ll need to borrow from international lenders to pay for it all.”
Hudak said that the Ontario PC Caucus believes in a very different approach: “It’s one that requires urgent action on two parallel tracks,” Hudak said. “We need to reduce the size and cost of government and kick-start growth and job creation in the private sector.
“I have raised these priorities daily for five months. This budget addresses none of them, which is why we refuse to support it.”
