Out of control government spending continues

QUEEN’S PARK – Ernie Hardeman, Oxford MPP and PC Critic for Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, said the budget fails to take the action needed to address the challenges facing the agriculture and food sectors and to stop out of control government spending.

“In an effort to hold on to government the Liberals are trying to buy NDP support rather than putting forward a real plan to get Ontario back on track,” Hardeman said. “The survey responses to my recent newsletter made it clear that the people of Oxford agree that we need to cut government waste and reduce spending but this budget fails to take the steps needed to get Ontario back on track,” said Hardeman.

Hardeman’s comments follow Thursday’s 2013 Liberal budget that, as expected, increases spending and the debt and continues the damaging anti-jobs policies of the McGuinty-Wynne era.

Hardeman also expressed concern that government spending is increasing by $3.6 billion and that the budget papers show the government has added 122,000 public sector jobs since June 2009.

“Every dollar paid in interest on the Liberals’ huge debt is money that won’t go to schools, hospitals or new investments in ou transportation networks. But the government has only made the problem worse through its reckless overspending.”

The budget also fails to address the challenges facing the agriculture and food industry such as red-tape and spiraling hydro costs.

“I’m disappointed that in the Premier’s first budget as Minister of Agriculture and Food there is nothing to address the challenges the sector is facing,” said Hardeman. “Through our white paper Paths to Prosperity: Respect for Rural Ontario and the prebudget submissions from Agriculture and food organizations this government was offered numerous suggestions for ways to strengthen the industry but they chose to ignore all of them.”

By contrast, the Ontario PC caucus has released 12 white papers with proposals to fix our outdated labour laws to compete for jobs, lower taxes, control hydro rates, strengthen our agriculture industry and to ensure we have a government that lives within its means, Hardeman said.

“It’s clear that the only way to change the direction of the government – to stop out of control spending and take action to create jobs and strengthen our agriculture and food industry – is to change the government,” said Hardeman.

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For more information, contact:
Ernie Hardeman, MPP Oxford
(416) 325-1239