TORONTO - Ontario's Liberal government used millions of dollars from a retraining program for laid-off workers to reward party supporters from last year's provincial election, critics charged Thursday as Premier Dalton McGuinty announced details of a new $355-million plan for long-term retraining.

In the legislature, Opposition Leader Bob Runciman said the Liberals had given more than $5 million from an earlier $25-million program to the International Union of Operating Engineers, a member of the Working Families coalition that helped re-elect the Liberals last fall.

"I think it raises a very legitimate question if you connect the dots, and we certainly didn't get any answers from the government minister today,'' Runciman said after question period.

"(The government is) making another announcement today, and you have to wonder how helpful these monies are in terms of real training, or if they're being used for other purposes.''

Premier Dalton McGuinty said there was nothing to back up Runciman's claims, and insisted the jobs retraining program was administered by civil servants without any interference from the Liberal government.

"There's no factual basis for that kind of an assertion,'' McGuinty said. "That program was entirely administered within the public service. It was arms length (and) had no influence by the political process.''

Runciman pointed to the union's website, where it boasts of getting a "5,000 per cent return'' on its investment with the Liberals, and says its three different training contracts were about "10 times the average'' of other grants the government handed out under the same program.

"If you look at their own website where they're saying (they got) a 5,000 per cent return on their investment, congratulating the guy who worked with the government,'' said Runciman.

"I think any reasonable person looking at that would (see) a very legitimate concern about the possibility of someone being rewarded through the back door with taxpayers' dollars.''

Training, Colleges and Universities Minister John Milloy flatly rejected Runciman's accusations, and said there was no evidence to support his claims.

"Absolutely not, and it's actually quite frankly outrageous that he would say that in there without any evidence,'' said Milloy.

"It was a very, very transparent process.''

McGuinty said a $355-million, three-year jobs retraining program he unveiled Thursday was unique to Canada because it would offer laid-off workers up to $28,000 if they returned to college to train for a second career.

"It's not an easy thing if you're 43 and you've just lost your job and you've got a couple of kids and a mortgage,'' he said.

"We don't really know how many of those people are prepared to go back to school for two years. I hope we get this thing dramatically over-subscribed.''

McGuinty took time to make sure reporters didn't tie the new, long-term retraining program to the previous $25 million plan.

"This $355 million is not available to support apprenticeships,'' he said. "It's available through our community colleges and private colleges, so it doesn't benefit unions.''

NDP critic Rosario Marchese welcomed the new program, but said it would benefit only a small handful of the tens of thousands of Ontario manufacturing workers who've lost their jobs.