NDP Leader Howard Hampton today repeatedly hammered the McGuinty government over its “Shortchange Budget” that offers no real plan to deal with Ontario’s most pressing problems.

“The McGuinty ‘Shortchange Budget’ has no real plan to save manufacturing jobs, no real plan to provide adequate care for seniors in long-term care homes, no real plan to assist Ontario’s poorest and no real plan to deal with the growing municipal infrastructure deficit,” said Hampton.

“This is a smoke and mirrors budget – it’s like a $96-billion shell game where the same money moves through different ministries from year to year. The new money that you see is actually from the current year’s surplus and it’s being shovelled out the Finance Minister’s door in a last-minute spending spree. That’s not a plan for the coming year and the years after that.”

During today’s Question Period, Hampton challenged Dalton McGuinty to reveal his plan.

“We have offered up a plan to address the serious challenges that hard-working Ontarians are facing on a daily basis. We challenge Dalton McGuinty to do the same,” said Hampton, alluding to a series of bold proposals the NDP has recently put forward.

These include:
· A jobs stimulus strategy that would protect and create manufacturing jobs through a “Buy Ontario” policy and a Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit ;
· A minimum standard of 3.5 hours of hands-on-care per resident per day in the province’s long-term care homes;
· The immediate elimination of the clawback of the national child tax benefit, and;
· The uploading of provincially-mandated programs and services from cash-strapped municipalities.