VAUGHAN, Ont. – A re-elected Liberal government would bring back the Ontario legislature within 20 days of the June 12 election and re-introduce the budget that triggered the vote, Premier Kathleen Wynne said Wednesday.
Fresh from Tuesday’s televised leaders’ debate, the Liberal leader joined hundreds of supporters and a dozen candidates in a banquet hall north of Toronto to make the promise.
She lashed out at Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak for vowing to resign as premier if, once elected, he can’t keep all his campaign promises, including cutting 100,000 public-sector jobs to help balance the budget.
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“He’s offered a money-back guarantee, but will the 100,000 people he puts out of work get a jobs-back guarantee,” Wynne asked the cheering crowd.
In Depth: Ontario Election 2014
Hudak can’t “govern by gimmick,” she said, before offering her own 20-day guarantee to recall the legislature.
The election was called after both opposition parties panned the May 1 budget, raising the possibility Ontario quickly could be plunged into another $90-million election if the Liberals form another minority government.
Asked if she would table the same $130.4-billion spending plan – which would hike Ontario’s deficit to $12.5 billion – even if it means triggering another election, Wynne dismissed it as a “hypothetical question.”
“That will be up to the people who are sitting in the legislature,” she said. “But if we are re-elected, we will have been re-elected on the plan that we have brought forward to the people of Ontario, and that’s the plan that we’ll be ready to implement.”
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