Wynne takes aim at Horwath
Liberal Party leader looking to stem support bleeding off to the NDP
Beleaguered Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne has joined Doug Ford on the anti-NDP bandwagon, warning Andrea Horwath’s party would raise corporate taxes, slow job creation and hurt the business climate with the unemployment rate at a 20-year low.
“Are we ready to turn Ontario’s economy over to the NDP? We believe the risk is too great,” W promised to pump another $900 million into helping companies expand over the next decade.
“This is a move that would be unmatched by the NDP ... They’re suspicious of business,” Wynne added, stepping up her attack with nine days to the June 7 election.
She was at Burloak Technologies, an advanced manufacturing company opening a hightech, 3-D aerospace and auto parts plant with $7 million in aid from the Liberal government’s jobs-and-prosperity fund.
The company just off the Queen Elizabeth Way in Oakville borders two ridings — held by cabinet ministers Kevin Flynn and Eleanor McMahon — that Wynne is trying to keep in Liberal hands with Horwath and Ford neck-and-neck for the lead in public opinion polls.
Ford has repeatedly told voters the NDP is full of “radical” activists and would be “10 times worse” than the Liberals, and has promised to cut government spending by $6 billion, middle class income taxes 20 per cent and gasoline taxes by 10 cents a litre.
Horwath pledges to raise the corporate tax rate to 13 per cent from 11.5 per cent, raising $2.1 billion annually within four years to help fund improved programs such as dental care, pharmacare and child care, with an extra $1 billion from a business education tax over the same time frame.
In Brantford, where she hopes to win a seat held by retired Liberal MPP Dave Levac, Horwath dismissed Wynne’s promise saying “people have clearly said they want change this time around” and noting there are business support programs in her platform.
“We’re happy to partner with the business sector to create good jobs in the province.” Aiming to make up lost ground as Liberal support has bled to the New Democrats, Wynne said voters need to take a closer look at the NDP platform than they have in past years when the party had little chance of winning.
“A party that has not had to be accountable for anything that it has said for decades is now in contention and we have to understand what it would mean to have them in office,” Wynne said of the New Democrats, last in power from 1990 to 1995 under Bob Rae.
Ontario’s corporate tax rates are now competitive with U.S. jurisdictions and it’s crucial to keep them there given the NAFTA renegotiation and the rising tide of protectionism south of the border, said Wynne, in front of the sprawling Burloak factory still under construction.
Without assistance to retain and add new jobs, Ontario risks losing companies to other jurisdictions, she added.
“It’s about taking a practical approach and working with business as a partner,” said Wynne, who insisted Horwath’s tax hike plan will “drive jobs down.”
She also took aim at the Conservatives for opposing aid to businesses.
“The jobs-and-prosperity fund is not, as Doug Ford would call it, corporate welfare. It is v also not selling out to the priav would say.”
Ford said during the second week of the campaign it’s not fair that some companies get grants or loans from taxpayers while others don’t, in effect, allowing the government to pick “winners and losers.”
The PCs have long fought the business aid, saying the process for who gets what is not transparent.
Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk found the Liberal government gave $2.3 billion in grants and loans to 374 companies between 2004 and 2015, with 80 per cent going to firms “invited to apply” by the government.