Ontario Can’t Afford a Del Duca-Wynne

Ontario Liberals Look Back to the Past With ‘New’ Liberal Leader

Today, the Ontario Liberal Party (OLP) chose to look backwards by electing Kathleen Wynne’s right-hand man, Steven Del Duca, as the new leader of their party.

“In 2018, people across Ontario sent a clear message to Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals, after enduring 15 years of waste, scandal and mismanagement,” said Paul Calandra, MPP for Markham-Stouffville. “By electing an individual who played a key role in delivering damaging policies that hurt Ontarians as their ‘new’ leader, the Liberals continue to show just how out of touch they are with the needs of the people of this province. Ontario taxpayers cannot afford the same destructive leadership they saw under Kathleen Wynne.”

Like his predecessor, Del Duca’s Liberals would make life harder and more expensive for Ontarians across the province. They certainly have the track record to prove it – from 2003 to 2018 the Liberals were responsible for:

• Increasing the province’s net debt by $77.8 billion, making it the largest subnational debt in the world
• Allowing hydro rates to increase to a crippling high that forced many Ontarians to choose between food or electricity
• Illegally fundraising in secret, against their own government’s law
• Firing over 1,600 nurses
• Raising undergraduate tuition to the highest rates in Canada
• Subsidizing the purchase of six-figure luxury Tesla cars
• Building a $19 million pedestrian bridge upside-down over Highway 401
• Taking away the rights of labourers and workers in a backroom deal passed days before calling the 2018 general election
• Uprooting communities across the province by closing more than 600 schools

Under the leadership of Doug Ford and the PC government, Ontario is back on the right track. Our Party has taken strong action to provide real relief for families, empower our hardest workers and build a more prosperous province. We have begun to clean up the fiscal disaster left by the Wynne and Del Duca Liberals and continue to make progress on reducing the deficit and balancing the budget.

Instead of looking forward to Ontario’s future, the Liberals have elected more of the same with Steven Del Duca. While today’s results aren’t surprising, one thing is clear: Ontario can’t afford a Del Duca ‘Wynne’.