Hudak under attack

With the campaign gaining momentum for Ontario’s election on June 12th, Conservative leader Tim Hudak is getting a roasting. The Liberal and NDP leaders are attacking his proposal to cut 100 thousand government jobs. As all three leaders roll out their election promises.

Kathleen Wynne met with nurses to say the Liberals would let registered nurses write prescriptions for a range of medications to improve health care — if they get back into government: “A re-elected Liberal government will expand the role and responsibilities of nurses.”

Wynne was also on the attack over Conservative leader Tim Hudak’s job-cut plan, saying he’s wrong to claim it won’t hurt health care: “The suggestion that 100 thousand positions could be taken out of the work that government does, the public good, that that could be done without affecting health care is I think questionable at best.”

“While Kathleen Wynne was talking to nurses, here in Cambridge personal support workers wanted to know what this election is going to do for them.”

They tracked down NDP leader Andrea Horwath to say they’re not too happy about their area of health care under the Liberal government.

Support worker: “We want to vote for the right person, who’s going to work for us and the health care system and the home care system — because right now it’s really broken.”

Horwath: “We have an electricity system that is a mess here in Ontario.”

Horwath was talking power, promising to merge four electricity agencies into one, and limit CEO salaries. She also said Hudak’s job cut plan doesn’t make sense: “One day he’s going to bring a million new jobs to Ontario. The next day he’s going to kick 100 thousand people to the curb. That’s not what Ontarians are looking for — that’s not what people tell me they want.”

Hudak was promising more GO transit service and expanded highways. And defending his planned job cuts, saying health and education bureaucracies could use some cuts to help pay for transportation: “Yeah, you’ve gotta trim the fat so you can invest in the front lines. There’s nothing more frustrating to somebody stuck in traffic, somebody who paid their income taxes and found they had less money this year than last year, than to see so much money wasted in health bureaucracies and education school boards.”

Hudak also repeated today that he would cancel any plans for Light Rail Transit in places like Hamilton, Brampton and Mississauga if he got into government. He says digging up the roads for rails is just going to slow things down. Instead, he’d use that money for GO Transit and highways.