New Democrat leader Howard Hampton promises to slash the salaries of Ontario politicians and immediately boost the minimum wage to $10 an hour if elected premier.

During a campaign stop in Ottawa, Hampton said the province's current $8 minimum wage is not enough to live on.

He blasted Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty for approving a 25 per cent increase in salaries at the end of last year.

The $22,000 pay hike raised the minimum salary for all provincial politicians to about $110,000 a year.

McGuinty, who he himself got a boost of about $39,000, is now pulling in an annual salary of $198,620.

"Contrast Mr. McGuinty's pay raise of (almost) $40,000 with the average wage of working women in Ontario -- $25,000,'' Hampton said, calling McGuinty's salary "extravagant.''

The incumbent Liberals have promised to increase the minimum wage to $10.25 by 2010, with annual increases of 75 cents starting next March.

Hampton, however, said the 1.2 million workers struggling to survive on minimum wage can't afford to wait.

"These workers (making minimum wage) are disproportionately women and new Canadians," he said.

"Many are raising children while trying to make ends meet and living below the poverty line even though they're working full-time hours or longer.''

Hampton said he donated his $12,330.22 pay raise to charity.

All other NDP members have donated part or all of their raises to charity, a party spokeswoman told The Canadian Press.

Tory pledges cleaner air, faster

Meanwhile, Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory said Thursday he'd invest up to $1.3 billion to install scrubbers in coal-fired plants across the province.

If elected, Tory also said he'd aim to close the plants by 2014, just as the Liberals have planned, but he said he can't sit idly by while air pollution contributes to 1,900 premature deaths in the province.

"Dalton McGuinty has stood by over the last four years while people got sick and some, in fact, by his own admission lost their lives,'' Tory said during a campaign stop in Nanticoke, home of Ontario's largest coal-fired plant and Canada's fifth-largest air polluter.

"I will not do that. I will put those scrubbers on because they can be put on at a reasonable cost. What cost human life? This is the right thing to do.''

But Tory also said he wouldn't close coal-fired plants until Ontario has better, stable alternatives.

He said he would build more nuclear power, as well as wind, solar and geothermal power to reduce the province's reliance on coal.

McGuinty unveils new job-creation fund

While visiting a new Toyota plant under construction in Woodstock, McGuinty says a $1.15-billion Liberal job-creation fund will help counter the loss of manufacturing jobs in Ontario.

While the opposition parties claim Ontario has lost more than 150,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs since the Liberals were elected in 2003, McGuinty says for every job lost, three more have been created.

He also says more than 95 per cent of the new jobs pay more than $19.50 an hour.

The Woodstock plant is expected to create 2000 jobs when it opens in 2008.

McGuinty says a new "next-generation jobs fund" will help create jobs in other manufacturing sectors, much like its $500-million auto sector fund, which led to $7 billion in new investments and 7,000 new jobs.

With files from The Canadian Press