TORONTO – Catherine Fife, Ontario NDP Finance Critic (MPP, Kitchener-Waterloo), says that Liberals’ fall economic statement shows that Ontario’s slow growth and falling revenues will result in deeper cuts, more privatization and sale of public assets.
“Liberal mismanagement means Ontario is going to miss four years’ worth of growth targets. It only took five months for the Liberals to admit they wouldn’t be keeping their rosy election promises,” said NDP Fife. “This update shows Liberals aren’t meeting their revenue targets, but are on track to make the deepest cuts since Mike Harris. With revenues down $509 million from just four months ago, how much deeper will the Liberals cut, and what other public assets are they going to sell or privatize just to make up for their losses?”
For the first time, the Liberals admitted publicly that they had not met their first year target for reducing auto insurance rates. The fall economic statement also cast serious doubts on the willingness of the Liberals to keep their promise to reduce auto insurance rates by 15 per cent.
“The Liberals made a lot of promises during the election, but open up the fall economic statement and they are nowhere to be found: Remember the Liberal promise for a 320 km/h bullet train in 10 years that would only cost $10? It’s nowhere to be found. Remember the promise that the Liberals would pay for transit with a Trillium Trust? It doesn’t even get mentioned,” continued Fife. “The Liberals talk up how quickly will create Stephen Harper-approved PRPP private pensions, complete with loopholes that will allow high-cost private pensions to completely undercut a proposed Ontario public pension, but the update doesn’t give any comfort to US Steel retirees wondering what will happen to the pensions they already have.”
