Joyce Savoline - Your Burlington MPP

Last month, Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government presented Ontarians with its 2010 budget.

The budget did not include any real action for deficit reduction. In the face of unprecedented deficits, job losses and high unemployment, I was disappointed that the 2010 budget failed to provide a real plan to get Ontario back on track.

Ontario’s $21.3-billion deficit is larger than every other provincial deficit combined and by 2012-13 this government will single-handedly have doubled Ontario’s debt.

The McGuinty Liberal’s budget reinforced that they have not developed a deficit reduction plan.

I was horrified to see that on page 71 of the budget, they take credit for a lower than expected number of H1N1 cases as contributing to deficit reduction.

This is not acceptable for a government that has dug Ontario into the deepest hole in history.

Today, Ontario has fallen so far that our standard of living is below the troubled state of Michigan and we lost more jobs during the recession than every other province combined.

Our jobless rate is not only higher than the Canadian average, it is also higher than the imploding economy in Greece.

Ontario was once a leader and a province that came to the aid of other provinces.

Under the McGuinty Liberal government, Ontario has fallen to have-not status. In 2009-10 Ontario received its first equalization payment of $347 million. Astonishingly, in just one year that equalization payment has tripled to $972 million.

Ontarians deserve better than what the McGuinty Liberals presented in their 2010 budget.

I know that Ontario can lead again and the first step to success begins with setting priorities and then developing a plan.

A real plan that will address the $21.3-billion deficit, the hundreds of thousands of job losses that have hit Ontarians across this province and a plan that puts Ontario back on top and no longer receiving equalization payments.

Joyce Savoline is the Conservative MPP for the provincial riding of Burlington.