Provincial party leaders campaign in southwestern Ontario Tuesday
Posted May 20, 2014 12:33 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The three major provincial party leaders took their campaigns to southwestern Ontario on Tuesday.
Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne visited Sandra Vos’ Farm in Paris and then attended a Dr. Oetker plant opening in London, which will be followed by a candidate meeting in Windsor in the evening.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath’s campaign stops included the London Health Sciences Centre and Locomotive Espresso in London.
But earlier Tuesday, Horwath announced at Queen’s Park that if elected, she would cut emergency room wait times in half.
Horwath said her party would hire 250 nurses to work in emergency rooms and create 1,400 more long-term care beds to help ease wait times, as well as committing to 50 new family health clinics that would offer 24-hour care to Ontarians.
She said the Liberals spent money on bureaucrats and executive salaries instead of on front-line care.
Horwarth said the NDP’s plan to reduce emergency room wait times would cost initially cost $205 million and then grow to $250 million.
Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak held a town hall at a Chinese cultural centre, and then heads for another town hall at Veldale Farms in Woodstock. He will end his day at Nuhn Industries in Sebringville.
Ontarians will be facing an onslaught of campaign ads that start running on Wednesday.
PC ads will feature Hudak talking about job creation. The Liberal ads will target the accuracy of statements and policies unveiled by the PCs and the NDP, while trying to link the current Tory plan to former premier Mike Harris’s Common Sense Revolution.
In their ads, the New Democrats will challenge the Liberals’ mismanagement of the GTA gas plant cancellations, Ornge air ambulance service and eHealth.
On Sunday, Hudak said that he’ll call a judicial inquiry into the Liberals’ cancellation of two gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga that cost Ontarian taxpayers $1.1-billion. At a campaign stop in Mississauga, Hudak said that if he’s elected premier, he would reduce red tape for small business owners.
On Monday, Wynne announced that if re-elected, her revitalization plan for Ontario Place won’t include condos, but rather, will be home to a year-round waterfront destination. Ontario Place opened in May 1971, but was closed in the summer of 2012 due to dwindling attendance and a lack of funds as it struggled with a $15-billion deficit.
The leaders’ debate will be held on June 3, featuring the three main parties.
Voters head to the polls on June 12.
With files from John Stall
