NDP MPP Peter Kormos condemned the McGuinty Liberals for failing to stand up for Ontario workers in this economic crisis.

“Dalton McGuinty has abandoned the workers of this province and he’s abandoned this province's economy. It is trite at this point in Ontario’s history to declare that we are suffering an epidemic of job loss in the resource and manufacturing sectors. It's a pandemic that’s affecting workers and communities across this province from the north to the south,” said Kormos.

Yesterday in the Legislature, Kormos introduced a motion calling on the McGuinty government to move expeditiously to establish and implement a comprehensive jobs program that would contain the following components:

• A refundable manufacturing investment tax credit that would encourage manufacturers and processors to make capital investments and create jobs.

• An industrial hydro rate that would ensure that all major industrial and resource-based consumers would be eligible for a fair new industrial hydro rate guaranteed for five years.

• A "Buy Ontario" program that would ensure that the billions of dollars in transit, other infrastructure investments, and health and education that governments make every year create good-paying jobs in Ontario and not in far away places.

• Job protection legislation that would ensure that laid-off workers receive the severance, back-pay and vacation pay that is owed to them by law.

• A jobs commissioner and other job-sustaining initiatives that would complement the above measures in protecting jobs and preventing plant closures such as the announced John Deere closure in Welland which will cost 800 workers their jobs.

The McGuinty Liberals voted down yesterday’s motion.

“New Democrats are fighting for working women and men in this province and their jobs. The workers of this province and their families deserve no less. We simply asked the McGuinty Liberals to join us; unfortunately they chose to turn their back on Ontarians,” said Kormos.