TORONTO - Ontario must scrap its "rich" wage agreements with public sector workers and negotiate a better deal if the province is to get back on firm economic footing, Progressive Conservative leadership hopeful Tim Hudak said Thursday.
The perceived front-runner in the race and heir apparent to former premier Mike Harris said the government simply can't afford multi-year agreements that provide teachers, doctors and others with annual three per cent pay hikes when Ontario is in the middle of a recession.
"Government workers have higher benefits and better job security compared to private sector workers, and public sector wages should reflect that fact," the former cabinet minister told the Economic Club of Canada.
"As premier, my goal would be to ensure that overall, public sector wage settlements reflect private sector realities."
Wages for non-union government workers and elected politicians should also be frozen until Ontario's economy rebounds, he added.
Unions will understand the need to renegotiate their labour agreements, he said after the speech.
"They know it's not wise to go into as deep a deficit as (Premier) Dalton McGuinty has brought forward," said Hudak, who serves as the Opposition finance critic.
"It's time for responsible leadership, both in government and in the public sector unions, to come together during these extraordinary economic times to find a way to find cost savings and to restrain cost escalations that are out of line with the private sector."
Offering a first glimpse of his economic platform, Hudak, 41, also called for the province to suspend for a year its Land Transfer Tax on homes and give businesses a tax break on new hires.
However, he wouldn't say whether he would cancel the much-despised health tax or repeal the Liberal government's controversial plan to merge the provincial sales tax with the federal GST -- a move that will increase the cost of many everyday items.
"There's already pressure on Liberal backbenchers to rebel against this tax hike," Hudak said.
"I'm not convinced that what Dalton McGuinty proposed will be the law of the land."
Hudak, who was first elected in 1995, has tried to fight off suggestions that he plans to turn the party clock back to its successful Common Sense Revolution days.
The controversial agenda saw Harris's government cut taxes and slash spending in Ontario, including a 22 per cent reduction in welfare rates.
The approach prompted labour unrest and widespread protests that culminated in a violent clash between police and anti-poverty activists on the front lawn of the provincial legislature in 2000.
Yet Hudak has strong ties to that era: he's married to Harris's former chief of staff and enjoys the backing of many of the architects of the right-wing agenda that propelled the party to power, including Harris himself -- a hero to the party's most devout conservatives.
Hudak isn't fooling anyone, said Bryan Evans, a politics professor at Ryerson University.
"He's very much a Common Sense Revolutionary," Evans said.
"Harris has come out of hibernation, in effect, to support Tim Hudak. That's a signal of something for sure."
Hudak may be trying to downplay the Common Sense era out of fear that he will be tainted by its more troubling episodes, such as the tainted water scandal in Walkerton, Ont., Evans said.
"Many of us still have images, and may have lived through or been touched by a period of rollbacks and constraint," he said.
But Hudak does have a point: austerity measures are on their way no matter who holds the reins of power, Evans added.
"We're in a serious situation in Ontario going forward where there's simply not going to be enough money to fund the public services that we all have come to expect and rely on," such as health care and education, he said.
"When governments do not have the revenue to support such things, then they get out of that work and the market will be allowed to pick it up. And that comes down to, do you have the ability to pay or not?"
Hudak is facing off against veteran Frank Klees and newcomers Randy Hiller and Christine Elliott -- the wife of federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.
The leadership race was triggered in March after John Tory lost a byelection and announced he would resign.