TORONTO — Dalton McGuinty came to power dishonestly four years ago and Ontarians are being “bamboozled” all over again, Conservative Leader John Tory charged Monday.
“If you look at the current course and speed of the Liberal government and their spending and their revenue ways and projections, there is no chance that we will get away without another substantial tax increase from Mr. McGuinty or a huge deficit,” Mr. Tory told reporters after visiting a veterans hospital in his Don Valley West riding.
“He will be as dishonest in getting elected this time as he was the last time in terms of trying to fool and bamboozle people and they'll take it in the neck, the tax payers will take it in the neck some time in the next four years. I can predict that with certainty and all I can say is it's unfortunate that, if he gets there that he's been able to fool people.”
Mr. McGuinty promised during the 2003 election campaign that he would not raise taxes and then, on his first budget, brought in a health premium that has been described as the biggest tax increase in Ontario history. Mr. McGuinty blames his about-face on the fact that the previous Conservative government hid the size of the deficit that he inherited.
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Despite having broken such a key election promise, Liberals are well ahead in the polls and are predicted to win handily on Wednesday night. But Mr. Tory is not counting himself out yet.
“I am confident that he's not going to get there,” he said of Mr. McGuinty. But if the Liberals do win, the taxpayers “will have been fooled by him again in terms of him being blatantly dishonest with them and I think that's unfortunate both in terms of not having a higher standard of integrity in politics and because the taxpayers just can't afford to pay more.”
The Conservatives are pending the final days of the campaign trying to generate fear of the incumbent Liberals and suggesting that the most vulnerable will suffer if Mr. McGuinty is given another four years in power.
Mr. Tory said he spent the morning of Thanksgiving Day at the Sunnybrook Veterans Residence because the first group of citizens that he wished to thank are the Canadian veterans.
The previous Conservative government of Mike Harris is not remembered for policy directed toward the protection of vulnerable Ontarians. But Mr. Tory says he will be different – and he will do more for seniors and others who need help than the Liberals.
“I think you can always look back,” he said. “I prefer to look ahead and I prefer to ask people this question which is ‘what do you think John Tory stands for and what do you think his whole life was spent doing long before he was in politics?'”
Mr. Tory said his concern for the people who need assistance goes back long before he decided to enter politics.
Mr. McGuinty, on the other hand, “professes to be concerned for the vulnerable,” he said, “and yet he lets people in long-term care sit in spoiled diapers for hours on end, he let's seniors be forced out of their home by skyrocketing taxes, he lets seniors pay a tax he imposed on them in a punitive way.”
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