TORONTO - Premier Dalton McGuinty misled Ontario voters last fall when he promised the province would start covering the costs of PSA tests for men over age 50 to help detect prostate cancer, the opposition parties charged Wednesday.
McGuinty announced the plan to pay for the prostate specific antigen tests, which cost between $30 and $35, during the middle of last year's Ontario election campaign, but he never announced a start date for the program.
It turns out the province won't start paying for the PSA tests until January 2009, which the Conservatives and New Democrats said Wednesday should have been made clear when McGuinty made the original announcement last September.
"Dalton McGuinty was very specific during the election. He said the government would pay for PSA tests, no exceptions, no maybe in the fullness of time. He said that this would be covered under OHIP,'' said NDP Leader Howard Hampton.
"What you're seeing now is the typical Dalton McGuinty habit of promising one thing during the election, (and) after the election, the promise is delayed, the promise is forgotten or the promise is never fulfilled.''
Health Minister George Smitherman said Wednesday that he's been telling people since last month's budget that the province will start paying for the PSA tests next January, but admitted there hadn't been a lot of publicity about exactly when the program would start.
"I'm not sure if it was announced before. I've been telling anyone that's asked me about it, so I guess until now people haven't asked,'' he said.
"I think it's impossible to pass along, even from the budget, every ounce of detail that would be helpful. But anybody who asked me, I told them that's when we'll be in a position to implement it.''
Smitherman insisted the Liberals were never trying to mislead voters, noting campaign promises can be fulfilled at any time during the four-year mandate of a government.
But Opposition Leader Bob Runciman wasn't buying that argument.
"I suppose you have four years, but with a commitment like that, which is of concern to a lot of people, I would expect that it would be kept within -- at the very least -- the first year following their re-election,'' said Runciman.
"The trouble is that, during the election, every other issue was obscured by the faith-based funding of private schools issue taking centre stage, so it wasn't discussed when it should have been.''
Hampton agreed it was unfortunate that John Tory's promise on faith-based schools overshadowed all other issues during the election campaign, especially the details on the promise to pay for the PSA tests.
Smitherman said the province would work with groups such as Cancer Care Ontario, the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation and the Canadian Cancer Society to develop and implement the PSA test program.
Prostate specific antigen tests are currently paid for by the province only when a doctor determines they are needed.
Physicians recommend men discuss PSA testing with their family doctors when they reach 50 years of age, but a survey by the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation of Canada released last September found only half of men aged 45 to 54 had discussed it with their doctor.
