THUNDER BAY – MPP Kathleen Wynne announced today in her riding of Don Valley West that she will seek the Leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party. “This is a critical moment not just for our party, but for Ontario,” said Wynne. “We must choose a leader who can help navigate through these difficult times —who can stay the course on our economic plan; who can bring opposing sides to the table and find real, creative solutions to the challenges we face.”
“Ontario Liberals have made tremendous progress over the past nine years thanks to Dalton McGuinty’s strong leadership,” said Wynne. “We’ve succeeded by leading from the middle. We need to keep working together, to build on our party’s successes and to keep the PCs and NDP from taking Ontario back to the divisive politics of the 1990s.”
The Ontario Progressive Conservatives are unimpressed. “Another tax and spend Liberal has entered the race to take Ontario further down the path towards a $411-billion debt”, Ontario PC MPP Jeff Yurek said today. “As a key architect in a government that for nine years has intentionally ramped up their reckless overspending, Kathleen Wynne lacks the credibility needed to get Ontario off the path of another credit downgrade. Ontario families need a government that is focused on the economy and reining in spending, but they will not get that with Wynne”.
“I am very troubled that if Wynne succeeds Dalton McGuinty, we will be unable to pay for things that matter most to Ontarians like frontline health care, first-class education and world-leading public transit,” added Yurek. “Wynne will put all the things we care about at risk.”
“Wynne needs to explain to taxpayers why she never showed the leadership Ontario needed and never stood up to say “no” to reckless overspending and the job killing policies that put over half a million people out of work.”
Wynne was first elected to the Ontario legislature in 2003, she was appointed Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and Minister of Aboriginal Affairs in October 2011. She had previously served as Minister of Transportation from 2010 to 201,1 and as Minister of Education from 2006 to 2010.
