Over the past few days, Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak has begun unveiling the details of his major jobs-creation strategy, with the attention-grabbing name "
Million Jobs Plan." (As some commenters have pointed out, Statistics Canada puts Ontario's unemployment rate at 556,000, so this may be hyperbolic.)
The plan starts, counter-intuitively to some, with a promise to cut jobs: 100,000 of them, to be precise, from the public sector rolls. This will include cuts to all sectors with the exception of health care, and also reduce transfers to municipalities. The rationale is that by cutting those jobs (and also instituting a public sector wage freeze), the PCs could eliminate the provincial deficit more quickly, thereby lowering the government's need to raise money through taxes and creating a more business-friendly economy.
"I take no joy in this, but it has to be done if we want job creators to put more people on the payroll in our province," Hudak said at a recent press event about this plan.
Both the Liberals and the NDP have lambasted this proposal, saying it will directly lead to unemployment, and undermine key services across the province. Premier Kathleen Wynne called it a "pink slip pledge" and warned it could push the province into a recession.
Hudak also wants to increase opportunities for apprenticeships, by increasing the allowable ratio of apprentices in the trades.
"For every single apprentice in many trades you have to have four or five journeymen, so they limit the number of opportunities. Allow each journeyman to mentor and train an apprentice, one each, and that'll help create 200,000 positions," he said when pitching the plan. (Wynne's response: just because you allow someone to take on an apprentice, that does not guarantee they will choose to do so; there's no evidence this will directly lead to a massive increase in apprenticeship positions.)
Another major plank of Hudak's platform is a business tax cut of 30 per cent, which he contends would leave to the creation of 120,000 new jobs. Though he did not provide the math which led to that figure, he said that in general a major business tax cut "will send a signal fire right across the world to say, 'Invest in Ontario. Add on that new machine."
So far, the PCs have produced by far the most headline-grabbing jobs strategy, and also by far the most controversial. Many commenters are already saying that its boldness will be key in the campaign, strongly attracting some in the business community, while strongly alienating many others who worry about the state of public services (not to mention all the voters who themselves hold public sector jobs).
Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (multiple press events)