Session: 38:2
Date: 17-May-2007

ONTARIO ECONOMY

Ms. Laurie Scott (Haliburton-Victoria-Brock): I have a question for the Premier. Premier, much has been said, and rightly said, about the $1 million of taxpayers' money that you feel you're entitled to for these puddle-jumping flights to Niagara and Peterborough. Over 140,000 manufacturing job losses have happened under your watch. Some of those losses happened in Peterborough, including the closure of MasterBrand Cabinets, National Grocers service, Transcontinental Book Printing and, most recently in my riding in Lindsay, Fleetwood.

Premier, at one point you referred to these job losses as a hiccup. It's nothing like the cabin-pressure hiccups that you're so familiar with. When are you going to show some respect for the taxpayers' money and the members of this Legislature, which you have promised to do, come out from above the clouds and bring forward the comprehensive jobs plan that members from all parties voted for over 16 months ago? Premier, when are you going to bring that jobs strategy forward?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty (Premier, Minister of Research and Innovation): I thank the member for the question. But let me say that one of the reasons that I use the airplane is to work as hard as I can to bring new jobs to Ontario and to go to different communities and speak with them about their economic potential, to meet with people who are working hard on the ground, and for our government to act in a complementary way. So whether you're talking about our auto sector strategy, our forestry sector strategy, our advanced manufacturing strategy or our agriculture strategy, you're talking billions of dollars there. We're working as hard as we can, together with Ontarians, to enhance the quality of their local economies to ensure that they have jobs that will sustain them long into the future. That's part and parcel of the trip that I take by airplane.