Stunted Growth Plan won't help Ontario's North: NDP

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NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY

****************************** Stunted Growth Plan won't help Ontario's North: NDP


QUEEN'S PARK - After four years of talk and delay the McGuinty Liberals’ Northern Growth Plan contains nothing to confront the serious challenges facing Northern Ontario, says NDP MPPs Gilles Bisson and Howard Hampton.



“If the McGuinty Liberals want to study the problems facing the North, they should look in the mirror," said Bisson. "After eight years in office, the McGuinty Liberals are out of ideas, out of energy and Northerners are out of patience."



Hampton noted that today's long-awaited growth plan is long on talk and short on action.



“We don't need a new study to tell us that McGuinty Liberals have devastated the North," said Hampton. “For eight years they've driven up electricity rates, watched our jobs and resources move out of province, and driven up the cost of living with their unfair HST. This so-called plan can't fix their colossal mess."



Hampton noted that before the 2007 election, the McGuinty Liberals made a similar Northern Growth Plan announcement.

Now, months away from another election, McGuinty Liberals are still talking about a growth plan.



“The last thing Northern families need right now is four more years of empty rhetoric from an arrogant McGuinty government," said Hampton. "We need a government that's ready to make life more affordable, focus on the cost of electricity, and ensure that the resources of the North stay in the North to create jobs."

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