After a raucous first week of election campaigning and party controversy, the three Ontario party leaders paused for a day of solemn remembrance on the 10th anniversary of 9-11.
Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak began his day at a 9-11 memorial event hosted at the U.S. Consulate in downtown Toronto where he laid a wreath in honour of the men and women who lost their lives 10 years ago.
Hudak later travelled to Hamilton where he visited St. Joseph's hospital. He was joined by Don Sheppard, the Tory candidate for Hamilton Centre. Together, they announced a plan to grow annual health care funding by $6.1 billion by the end of the party's first term if elected on Oct. 6.
"We are committed to publicly funded health care for Ontario families," Hudak said.
"We will put an end to the McGuinty Liberal scandals that waste precious health care dollars. No more eHealth-style fiascos or wasteful spending on consultants at the Ministry of Health and Cancer Care Ontario."
The cutbacks will also apply to hospital executives whose facilities are not up to par. Hudak said the Tories would link a hospital CEO's pay to patient outcomes and emergency room wait times.
He said data will be made available from a website that will compare the province's 211 hospitals.
Hudak also pledged to introduce 40,000 new and renovated beds to Ontario's long-term care system, according to a release sent by the party on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty began his day in Oakville, Ont. where he was seen flipping pancakes for members of the town's fire department. McGuinty shook hands with the firefighters to thank them for their service on Sept. 11 and noted the role they played on that historic day.
"Sometimes we take (them) for granted," McGuinty told reporters from inside Fire Station 1 in Oakville.
"These men and women do a great job for us 365 days a year."
Later on Saturday, the Liberal leader was in London for the dedication of a new memorial in honour of the city's firefighters who have lost their lives serving the community.
"With the dedication of this memorial, families, friends and the public will have a place to pause and reflect on the sacrifice made by firefighters who have served the people of London, and given their lives for our families," McGuinty said.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, meanwhile, attended a 9-11 ceremony in downtown Toronto.
She said she attended the Toronto Emergency Services memorial at Nathan Phillips Square in downtown Toronto not as a politician, but as a fellow human being.
"Yes we are in the middle of a very rigorous election campaign but there are some times when you have to step back and say the world is a bigger place than just Ontario politics," Horwath told The Canadian Press.
The Toronto event was also attended by United States Consul General Kevin Johnson.
Johnson told The Canadian Press Sept. 11, 2001 was a day of "incredible losses but also one to commemorate the heroism of those who responded to the attacks.
"We can never forget that service that is going and as well that service of those who paid the ultimate price 10 years ago," he said.
After the service, Horwath mingled with the public and took in a list of all the emergency workers killed on Sept. 11.
Sunday is the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in the U.S. that killed close to 3,000 people, destroyed the World Trade Center buildings and sent a plane colliding into the Pentagon and another into a field in Pennsylvania.
With files from The Canadian Press
