Premier makes rural and northern funding announcement 100 km from Toronto
From office of: Tamara Johnson, Ontario PC candidate from Thunder Bay Superior North
Liberals are out-of-touch with Northern Ontario
THUNDER BAY, ON – Friday, Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne travelled all the way to Barrie – just 100 km from Toronto – to announce a plan to create a $100 million fund for rural and northern Ontario.
“Premier Wynne continues to prove that she’s just like Dalton McGuinty when it comes to understanding Northwestern Ontario,” said Thunder Bay – Superior North candidate Tamara Johnson, “when McGuinty made northern Ontario announcements he went to Newmarket; Wynne goes to Barrie.”
What’s more concerning is that details provided at the Thunder Bay announcement attended by Infrastructure Minister Glenn Murray, confirmed that Thunder Bay doesn’t qualify for these funds. But in Barrie, the Premier ‘couldn’t say if Barrie would qualify for any of the money’ saying that ‘we will be working with municipalities across the province to make sure we get the formula right.’
“The Liberals aren’t serious about helping northwestern Ontario, that’s why on Friday her Infrastructure Minister’s northern announcement in Thunder Bay was different than Wynne’s northern announcement outside of Toronto”, said Johnson, “in fact, just a few weeks ago, the Liberals voted against a PC plan to share the Gas Tax with rural and Northern Ontario.”
Friday, Opposition Leader Tim Hudak was in Thunder Bay to announce key steps the PCs would take to create jobs and attract investment to the Northwest, including:
- Lower taxes, affordable energy and uprooting red tape for all Ontario businesses, to boost demand for Northern products and resources
- Leadership and a plan to light up the Ring of Fire – a vast but dormant deposit of chromite needed to make stainless steel, as well as copper, nickel and zinc
- More local authority over the development of Crown land – part of a broader drive toward decision making for the North – by the North
- Streamlining regulation to kick-start new mining operations, and
- Priming the forestry industry for an expected rebound in demand with a transparent tenure system and a guaranteed level of supply
“Unfortunately, the current government has made it very clear that Northwestern Ontario is not a priority,” Johnson said, “It’s time we had a government that respects – and reflects – Ontario’s North.”
