Premier Kathleen Wynne says Doug Ford’s victory in the recent Tory leadership race won’t change her approach to the upcoming June election.
Wynne spoke on 980 CFPL’s The Andrew Lawton Show on Tuesday afternoon, and said her team had been long working on the next steps of their plan.
“In some ways, it didn’t really matter who the winner was,” she explained.
“We knew that no matter who the Conservative leader was, because we could hear all of the candidates, we knew they were going to back away from fighting climate change, they were going to cut services across government.”
The premier said she and her team were preparing an approach before Doug Ford’s leadership win. Part of it includes fighting climate change, which she believes to be the world’s greatest physical threat.
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“We all have to do our part. If a leader in this province has no plan to deal with that, I think that it’s a real problem because people can look around. They can look at the flooding, they can look at the fires, they can look at the extreme weather events that are happening not far from home. They can see that there need to be changes.”
Ford spoke on The Andrew Lawton Show on Monday, during his first day on the job. He committed to cutting hydro rates by 22 per cent, reviewing people’s interest in London’s bus rapid transit plan, and uniting his party in defeating Wynne.
On Tuesday, Wynne responded to Ford’s plan of finding four per cent on every dollar of government spending, by saying it would cost tens of thousands of jobs.
“Most of what government does is have people delivering services to other people. As soon as you talk about cutting four per cent across government, you’re talking about teachers, you’re talking about nurses, community supports. Those are the real cuts he would have to make.”
When asked how she’d help draw the manufacturing back to southwestern Ontario — a topic also debated during a PC leadership debate at 980 CFPL — Wynne said there’s been a shift from traditional manufacturing to advanced manufacturing.
“We’re seeing innovation in agri-food, in the auto-sector, in traditional manufacturing, that is helping to make that transition to advanced manufacturing,” she said.
Wynne will be in London sometime this week, during a tour across the province.