71,000 Ontario jobs lost in the space of one month. That is a staggering statistic. I would say that it?s a wake up call, except for the fact that we are far beyond the point at which the McGuinty government can afford to be sleeping.
For months we?ve been given the same lines about the McGuinty economic plan and for months Ontario?s job numbers have been plummeting. Dalton McGuinty and his ministers have given Ontario any number of excuses, pointing their finger first at the United States, then at Canada?s federal government, but never once did they give themselves a job evaluation. I guess that will be up to Ontarians in 2011.
Had the McGuinty government undergone some form of self analysis, they would have to admit that the economic writing was on the wall years ago, that we in the opposition didn?t just like the sound of our own voices as we warned of the approaching crisis, and that experts weren?t kidding when they said that something had to be done.
But they didn?t.
Now Ontario has suffered hundreds of thousands of job losses ? 86,000 since the re-election of the McGuinty government in 2007. We?ve lost manufacturing jobs and the potential of our economy to create wealth by supplying private sector jobs has been systematically weakened by uncompetitive tax policies and unnecessary government regulation. Despite this the McGuinty Liberals chose to focus their energies on creating more government jobs-the only sector that has seen real expansion.
We?ve still not heard from the government on what their course of action is to be. Will they cling to a clearly ineffective five point plan? Will they choose to again hide and occasionally cast a weary eye to the sky to check if the storm has passed? Or will the step up to the challenge and tackle the issues that are facing Ontario head on?