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The Ontario Liberal Party is promising to reduce waiting times in hospital emergency rooms, offer full-day kindergarten programs by 2010 and boost a job-creation fund by $500-million.

Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty unveiled Thursday a campaign platform for the Oct. 10 provincial election that focuses on five priorities: education, public health care, job creation, the environment and improving quality of life.

Mr. McGuinty described the platform, which contains 71 new commitments, as the “next logical step” for his party.

“It's no secret our top priority is education,” he told reporters.

The platform, which contains far fewer promises than the 150 in the 2003 document, had has its costs fully worked out, is affordable and achievable, a Liberal Party official said.

But Mr. McGuinty is once again on the defensive over his health premium. His government introduced the $2.6-billion-a-year tax in 2004 after promising in the 2003 election not to raise taxes.

He said in 2004 that he would review the tax in 2009, but he made it clear Thursday that the tax is here to stay.

“We need every single penny of that premium,” he told reporters.

Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory has promised to eliminate the tax by the end of his four-year term if his party wins the election. He has said he would do so by finding $1.5-billion in efficiencies.

However, the Liberal party official pointed out that the bulk of the tax cut would come in the last two years under Mr. Tory's plan.

In order to cut the tax, Mr. Tory said revenue would rise dramatically during the last two years for “no explicable reason,” the Liberal official said.

The Liberals plan to boost education funding by $3.1-billion a year by 2011. Mr. Tory has made a similar promise, but the Liberals say his plan to give $400-million to private, faith-based schools would take money out of public education.

There is also a $45-million dental-care program for low-income families, a new grant for seniors to help them keep their homes in the face of rising property taxes, and expansion of a new home tax credit to all first-time home buyers.

Party strategists describe the 43-page Liberal platform as a ‘new chapter, not a new book.'

Meanwhile, NDP Leader Howard Hampton outlined his plan Thursday morning to meet Kyoto Protocol targets and cut Ontario's greenhouse gas emissions to 6 per cent below 1990 levels over the next four years.

In a speech at the Toronto Board of Trade, Mr. Hampton said he would close coal-fired plants by 2014 that would account for about half of the province's reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Further, 600,000 homes and 400,000 apartment units would be retrofitted to be more energy efficient.

Mr. Hampton said he would also fast-track investments in public transit projects, including new investments in light rail and GO Transit.

“Our strategy will address global warming by setting aggressive and achievable greenhouse gas emission targets,” he said.

Mr. Hampton criticized Mr. McGuinty for what he said is a failure in the fight against global warming. He said the Liberal government has tried to fool people in thinking that it has taken action. Mr. Hampton said it has been “four years of missed opportunities and four years of broken promises on this issue.”

With a report from Canadian Press