TORONTO - Premier Dalton McGuinty took aim at the Progressive Conservatives' latest campaign promises Wednesday, saying health care has never been one of their priorities and suggesting there would be cuts to the sector if the Tories are elected this fall.
The premier said he was intrigued by Leader Tim Hudak's pledge to boost spending on health care by $6.1 billion over four years if he wins the Oct. 6 election, since he's never asked the premier a health-care question in the legislature.
"Maybe I'm forgetting something, but (I don't recall) him ever standing up and saying that we need to enhance the number of our nurses, or we need to do more to get wait times down, we need to put a few more family health teams in place," McGuinty said. "I prefer to look at their record when it comes to these kinds of things -- I know what they say, but I know what they've done."
A Tory government would go back on progress made by the Liberals by closing hospitals and firing nurses to balance the books after paying for expensive health and electricity plans, just like it has done in the past, McGuinty added. His comments once again raised the spectre of former premier Mike Harris' Common Sense Revolution agenda that slashed government spending in the province.
"We'll keep you acquainted of the size of the hole in his budget as that continues to grow," McGuinty said.
Hudak fired back, saying the PCs have laid out ways to find savings, such as shutting down the province's 14 local health integration networks, as well as the Ontario Power Authority.
They also plan to review all of the province's 630 agencies, boards and commissions "and if they can't justify their existence, they'll go."
"We're going to spend less money than the Liberals, we're going to actually set priorities," said Hudak. "We've seen the failure of Dalton McGuinty's leadership because he threw money at every problem under the sun, and now we've ended up with a big deficit."
Hudak's office also said there has been about 150 instances in which health care was part of a question as an example or as the direct question Hudak asked in the legislature over the last two years to either McGuinty, the acting premier or the health minister.
They also provided five direct instances in which Hudak asked the premier why services were being cut at hospitals.
The Tories' health-care plan, unveiled Tuesday, calls for 5,000 new long-term care beds over four years in addition to 35,000 "renovated" beds -- those that are being brought up to newer standards -- over the next 10 years.
Other election promises announced so far include scrapping the harmonized sales tax and debt retirement charge from home hydro and heating bills, a move the PCs said will save households $275 a year.
But Hudak has stopped short of removing the controversial tax, and party sources also said last week he wouldn't eliminate the health tax despite calling both of those policies greedy tax grabs.
On Wednesday, both parties also appointed new candidates for the fall election.
The Liberals said human rights expert and activist Bernie Farber would be running in Thornhill, while the Progressive Conservatives said businessman Simon Nyilassy is up in Etobicoke-Lakeshore.
