Submitted by the Office of PC leader Tim Hudak
QUEEN’S PARK, March 5 – Ontario can return to balanced budgets and job creation – but not while property taxes are going up to pay for unaffordable increases in public sector salaries and benefits, PC Leader Tim Hudak said today.
Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak
“Under this government, public sector compensation has gotten way out of line with private sector realities,” Hudak said. “We need to act on behalf of the 85 per cent of Ontarians who aren’t on the government payroll and have made far more sacrifices in these difficult times.
“In the name of fairness, it’s time to fix a broken system that sees arbitrators hand outsized wage settlements to local public sector workers regardless of a municipality’s ability to pay.”
Hudak said the issue will be tackled by a forthcoming Ontario PC bill that would ensure public sector union wages are brought back into line with the ability of taxpayers to afford them:
Requiring arbitrators, who referee salary and benefit settlements, to consider specific, local economic and budgetary criteria – like unemployment and growth rates – and explain in writing how these criteria affected the decision
- Requiring cases to be settled by an independent person, approved by the Ministry of Labour, within tight timelines, and
- Establishing an independent wage board, using existing resources, to collect and publish comparable data on compensation disclose all settlement awards
“In many municipalities, the wage and benefit costs for emergency service workers are running between 50 and 80 per cent ahead of inflation under this government,” Hudak noted. “This leaves municipalities with no choice but to increase taxes or cut important public services.
“That’s unacceptable when our economy is barely growing. Municipalities have pleaded with the government to fix this system. But the Liberals made a deliberate choice to take the side of public sector union bosses.”
Ontarians are footing the bill for the government’s failed approach with higher taxes and lost jobs – and the NDP are just looking for excuses to hang on for the ride, Hudak concluded.
“They’ve put Ontario on the wrong track. Only the PCs have a plan to put taxpayers before public sector union bosses.”
(Niagara At Large encourages all visitors to this site to share their views on this or any other posts on our site. Divergent views are most welcome in the spirit of NAL’s goal to operate as a virtual town hall for discussing and debating issues of interest and concern to our communities and countries across the greater Niagara region and beyond.)
Niagara At Large 
This guy has been elected too long. He is not even in the real world anymore.
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What a surprise. Anti-union, is Hudak? I can barely believe hearing this.
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Well when one considers that for a person making a salary of $80K per year contributes approximately $29K per year in income taxes, $4K per year on property taxes (based on a modest bungalow in St. Catharines), $1.5K in vehicle purchase consumption taxes (based on a $30k vehicle over 5 years) + 13% consumption taxes on fuel, entertainment, non-food purchase….. something has to be done. And unions are a big reason for these outrageous taxes. How is one to buy a home, school their children, save for their retirement. It should be no wonder that households now require 2 incomes to survive with any comfort! I don’t know of anyone working at Tim’s or McDonalds because they want to!
Government waste at all levels, union demands at all levels, government transparency and accountability at all levels need to be dealt with.
Not that any of our politicians care, but Just Sayin………
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If you think the unionized workers are doing so well, Greg, perhaps it would make more sense for you to join / organize a union where you work. At least it would make the taxes you pay to maintain other peoples union salaries more affordable for you….Then again perhaps you hire workers….?
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You obviously are missing the point that the Editor and my response was attempting to address.
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Well, if you don’t like this guy you could look at this is way; do you like direction Ontario has been going the past 10 years.
A Note from NAL publisher Doug Draper – We could also look at it this way; ‘Why do we have to choose between the evil of lessers, or between dum and dumbest. As George Carlin once said; these politicians don’t come from another planet. They are products of our communities, culture and education system. In other words, they come from among us. Maybe we ought to give that a little more thought.
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