The Ontario Liberals and Conservative went head to head Saturday, effectively making faith-based schools and the province's health tax key issues for the upcoming election.
Ontario Conservative Leader John Tory says he will inject an additional $8.5 billion into the province's health care system if elected premier.
Tory made the announcement while touring Toronto East General Hospital on Saturday. He said the infusion of funds would serve to do away with the Liberal government's unpopular health care tax.
George Smitherman, the current provincial health minister, decided to stray from his usual focus on health-related issues and opted to target education instead, attacking the proposed Conservative plan to bring religious schools into the public realm.
Smitherman said funding religious schools will cost approximately $500 million -- $100 million more than what the Conservatives pledged.
"This is not a well thought through policy," Smitherman said Saturday.
"It may be born out of a nice emotion, but it's not a well thought-through policy and it certainly doesn't meet the test of leadership matters."
Smitherman said funding 53,000 students to attend private religious schools would divert tax dollars from the public educational system.
"We don't think it's fair to divert attention from the core responsibilities for those two million kids in Ontario in favour of a policy that encourages people to divide up on religious and ethno-cultural bounds,'' he said, echoing the comments of many of his cabinet colleagues.
The religious school issue has become a hot-button topic in the past month, well before official campaigning for the Oct. 10 provincial election even began.
Tory said he's pleased the religious education issue is getting so much attention, but there is much more to the Conservative platform than faith-based schools.
"People are talking about a wide variety of issues in this campaign and I'm delighted at that, as well as educational issues. There are a lot of things people care about," Tory said Saturday.
Last month, he proposed funding faith-based schools under the public umbrella to ensure students are being taught Ontario curriculum by accredited teachers.
The Conservative leader came under fire last week for his controversial suggestion that religious schools could teach creationism alongside the theory of evolution.
Greg Sorbara, head of the Ontario Liberal's election campaign, called the proposal "the greatest threat to public education" since he began a career in politics.
With a report from CTV's Chris Eby and files from the Canadian Press
