THUNDER BAY – Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak was joined by several Ontario PC candidates to outline “How Dalton McGuinty’s affirmative action subsidy undermines the Canadian values of equality and fair treatment”. “Whether you have been in Canada 1 year, or 6, or 20, or whether you were born here, you deserve equal treatment by the government and an equal shot at a job – based on your qualifications, not based on the government playing special favourites. Dalton McGuinty offers a $10,000 affirmative action subsidy that is not available to some Ontario workers because they have been in Ontario too long. That’s not equal treatment. It’s not a real jobs plan. And it’s just not fair,” asserts Hudak.
“According to Dalton McGuinty’s latest rewrite of his own policy, someone who has lived in Ontario for 55 months qualifies for a massive $10,000 job subsidy, while someone who has lived in Ontario for 61 months or longer gets left out in the cold. Dalton McGuinty’s affirmative action scheme was always divisive. Now it is incoherent as well.”
The PCs are saying that “According to the latest panicky rewrite of the Liberal 2011 platform, Dalton McGuinty will provide businesses with a $10,000 affirmative action subsidy for hiring employees who have lived in Ontario for less than five years. This latest edition of Dalton McGuinty’s divisive policy deliberately disadvantages every Ontario worker who has lived in Ontario longer than five years”.
The PCs state, “According to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, you have to be in Canada for 3 years before you can apply for citizenship. Citizenship and Immigration Canada also estimates that that the processing time for a citizenship application is 19 months. This means that a worker must reside in Canada at least 55 months before qualifying for an affirmative action subsidy that will expire a mere five months later”.
Hudak promises, “A PC Government will treat all workers with fairness, equality, and respect. The Ontario PC Party has a real jobs plan that will give all workers an equal chance to succeed by making Ontario’s business taxes more competitive, eliminating job-killing red tape, fixing the apprenticeship system, and strengthening small business”.
