Opposition giving Wynne the gears over budget

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath grilled Premier Kathleen Wynne about her government’s budget today.

Horwath rejected the Liberal budget the last time it was proposed, and didn’t sugar-coat her feelings towards it again in today’s Question Period.

“Does the premier think that Ontarians voted for austerity and cuts?”

“What we know the people of Ontario did not vote for was a disparate, disconnected list of ideas that were basically based on our fiscal plan, and didn’t hang together and had no coherence so they didn’t vote for that.”

Wynne is sticking by her plan, which she says invests in the people of Ontario, and draws other investments from around the world.

Interim PC leader Jim Wilson asked how many jobs will be lost if the Liberals sell off Ontario government assets.

“How many liquor store employees, LCBO employees, Hydro One employees, OPG employees, are about to lose their jobs?”

“It’s an interesting situation when the party that ran on immediately cutting 100,000 jobs in Ontario are questioning us about that issue.”

Wynne, however, says that experts are going to help the province optimize the value of operations like the LCBO and OLG.

“Let me just say that the reason we have asked Ed Clark and his team to look at the assets that are owned by the people of Ontario is that we work to the optimal value, oprimal benefit, for the people of Ontario.”

Wynne says that if a similar process existed when the 407 was sold, the province could have avoided losing billions of dollars worth of potential revenue.