QUEEN’S PARK – The province can rise above the Liberals’ made-in-Ontario jobs and debt crisis, but only if we take urgent action to balance the budget by both growing the economy and reducing the size and cost of government, Ontario PC Economic Development Critic Monte McNaughton said today.
McNaughton comments came after today’s release of Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey, which shows September as the 69th consecutive month Ontario’s unemployment rate has been higher than the national rate.
“The jobs market is treading water right now,” McNaughton stated. “The province only gained enough jobs last month to keep up with the growth in the labour force, which is why the unemployment rate barely budged from 8.0 per cent.”
“This is a far cry from progress. It’s been a year since the 2011 election, and there are now 30,000 more people who woke up this morning without a job. That’s nearly 600,000 people in total.”
For the last nine years, the McGuinty Liberals’ policies have stifled job creation. Businesses cannot stay competitive under the heavy burden of excessive red tape, higher taxes, and unaffordable energy bills.
“Since 2003, we’ve lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs while the public sector has grown by 300,000,” McNaughton stated. This is unacceptable. Worse yet, the McGuinty Liberals have no plan to fix the mess they’ve created.”
The large growth in government jobs plus overly generous wage increases has caused the government employee wage bill to balloon by nearly 50 per cent to $60 billion – currently the single biggest government expense.
“You can’t simply cut your way to prosperity,” McNaughton said. That’s why the Ontario PCs’ comprehensive and integrated Freeze, Fix, Reduce package proposes to freeze public sector wages and scrap unaffordable public sector perks, halt planned spending increases, fix the way government works and spends, and reduce that spending on a permanent basis.
“Putting this province on the path to prosperity is crucial for Ontarians and all of Canada,” McNaughton concluded. “Right now we’re letting people down. It’s time for urgent action.”
