Horwath denies Wynne’s claim of $3B ‘mistake’ in party platform
It is ‘pretty dishonest’ of Liberals to allege budget numbers wrong, NDP leader counters
The NDP platform has a hole in it of at least $3 billion, due to a “major mistake” in crunching the numbers, the Liberals charge.
Finance Minister Charles Sousa said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath made “a significant, sizable, and undeniable mistake” in crafting her party’s 97-page campaign manifesto.
“As a result, they have refunded billions of dollars that flow to valued programs,” Sousa told reporters Monday at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades Training Facility in Downsview.
“It’s a failure of basic competence that leads to real consequences and it means the NDP are running on a program of careless cuts and unfunded promises,” said the Mississauga South Liberal candidate.
The apparently unintentional error appears to stem from the NDP ignoring a chart in the March budget entitled “key changes in the medium-term expense outlook since the 2017 budget.”
The Liberals say, as a result, the NDP’s “Change For The Better” platform would, over three years, cut $800 million from the seniors’ healthy homes program, $300 million from women’s shelters, $300 million for new guidance counsellors, $300 million for special education, $220 million from combating the opioid crisis, $170 million from apprenticeship programs for skilled trades, $137 million from the legalized-cannabis implementation strategy, $85 million from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, $63 million from the jobs and prosperity fund, $62 million from autism services, and $33 million from the Toronto-Windsor high-speed rail project, among other things.
Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne, who is tied with or trailing Horwath in public-opinion polls — well behind Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford — said it’s important to take “a hard look” at the other parties.
It is “pretty dishonest” of the Liberals to allege NDP budget numbers are wrong, Horwath said during an impromptu scrum with reporters aboard her campaign bus on the way to a dairy farm in Watford.
“Down the line you go through their press release, and where they are claiming that we’ve taken money out, in fact, all we are doing is saying we didn’t agree with what the Liberals were going to do; we’re going to do things differently,” she explained.
She said the New Democrats also have a page of new program spending and pointed to differences between the two platforms on pharmacare and dental care as examples.
“All those things are in our numbers as well,” she said.
“I thought it was important to let you know that it’s pretty disappointing to watch Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals take on this very dishonest ploy — but it is just a ploy and we are very firm with our numbers.”
Ford has promised to release a fully-costed platform before the June 7 election.
“Ontario Liberals have been clear: we have been bringing more care and choice to the people of the province,” said Wynne, noting Ford’s pledge to cut four per cent of government spending will mean a reduction of at least $6 billion.
With 85 per cent of spending going to salaries, that will mean thousands of job cuts for teachers, nurses, firefighters, police, doctors and others on the public payroll, she said.