NDP Health and Long-Term Care Critic France Gélinas is shocked that 4 days after a halted VIA train in Foleyet caused a full blown health scare, the McGuinty Liberals admit the train was never quarantined in the first place.

“For the McGuinty Liberals to send chills throughout the province by pretending the VIA train was quarantined, when in fact that never was the case, is both insensitive and irresponsible,” said Gélinas, the MPP for Nickel Belt.

Today in the Legislature, Gélinas asked the McGuinty Liberals to tell Ontarians who made the decision to quarantine the train. Minister of Health and Long-Term Care George Smitherman responded: “There was no official quarantine of the train.”

“If a quarantine order was never issued in the first place, why are the McGuinty Liberals only revealing that information now? The Minister could have clarified what happened in Foleyet early on Friday morning. Later that day at a Queen’s Park press conference, the Chief Medical Officer of Health could have clarified what happened. For the McGuinty Liberals to remain silent and pretend they acted swiftly to quarantine the train is reprehensible,” said Gélinas.

“No doubt that all the health officials on the ground did a fantastic job. But rather than falsely claiming that a train had been quarantined, the McGuinty Liberals should have come clean as soon as the public learned a train had been halted and eased everyone’s fears that a possible disease outbreak was unfolding. Post-SARS, Ontarians deserve better than a government that takes credit where credit simply is not due,” said Gélinas.