PCs promise full accounting by ‘end of campaign’

With election looming, Doug Ford still hasn’t said how plan will be paid for

PORT COLBORNE, ONT.—Doug Ford said Tuesday that he will give a full account of how a Proggressive Conservative government would pay for all of its election promises “by the end of this campaign.”

The PC leader did not provide a specific date, however, with little more than a week remaining until voters go to the polls.

Speaking to a group of seniors at a retirement home in Niagara Region, Ford listed cost-cutting promises his party has made, including lower gasoline prices, reduced hydro rates and income tax cuts.

Asked by reporters when he’ll release a comprehensive list of those ached, promises he said with the PCs costs have been “rolling out our plan” throughout the campaign.

“Every single day, we have a press conference, we roll out our plan. Every single day, we put a cost beside our plan,” Ford said. “… We put a price tag beside every single item and each and nce every one of you (reporters) that follows us around, and every day I hold a press conference and tell you about our great plan.

“But by the end of this campaign, we will have a fully costed platform.”

Ford has come under increas- ing pressure from his rivals to tell voters how the PCs would pay for their promises.

But while the Tories are the only party without a fully costed platform, Ford charged that NDP Leader Andrea Horwath “is running on a platform that doesn’t add up.”

“Every dollar they want to spend is coming out of your wallet,” he said, while the PCs will "put money back in your wallet.”

Ford told the seniors that his is the only party they can trust “to create good jobs and keep our economy strong so we can hire more nurses, more doctors, more teachers and protect the services we need.”

The Liberals and NDP have warned that Ford would need to cut tens of thousands of jobs to come up with the $6 billion he has said the province could easily save through “efficiencies,” while insisting that no jobs would be lost.

On Tuesday, the Liberals went a step further, posting a list of Ford’s pledges they claim would cost about $40 billion over the term of his government.

In a news release, the party detailed costs from Ford’s campaign pledges, including the $2-billion annual loss of revenue from cancelling the capand-trade program, $1.3 billion annually for a 1-per-cent reduction in the corporate tax rate and $1.2 billion a year for cutting gasoline taxes by 10 cents per litre.