NDP leader Andrea Horwath's deal with the McGuinty government to avoid a provincial election has left the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC) still on the chopping block.
The NDP abstained from voting for the budget motion April 24 in the Ontario Legislature. The budget passed 52 to 37.
The Ontario Tories voted against the budget, including Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli who took the opportunity to tee off on the NDP.
The headquarters for the Crown agency is in his home riding of North Bay.
“For all their bluster and loud rhetoric about their support for Ontario Northland over the last few weeks, the NDP sat on their hands under the budget vote.”
In a statement, Fedeli said while the ONTC “fire sale” occurs, his challenge is to find ways to deliver transportation and communication services to residents and companies in northeastern Ontario.
But the NDP insists the fight to keep the ONTC has just started.
NDP MPP Gilles Bisson of Timmins-James Bay called the Liberal decision to axe the Ontario Northland as “shortsighted and wrong, and we're going to fight to stop it in its tracks.”
In the Ontario Legislature, Minister of Northern Development and Mines Rick Bartolucci pledged the region will have a transportation system in place that will be “sustainable, affordable, efficient and effective, not only for today but for tomorrow.”
Among the NDP-inspired budget amendments include making the rich pay a 2-per-cent surtax and pumping $20 million into Northern Ontario hospitals.
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