Mr Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North):
My question today is for Premier McGuinty. I
want to congratulate you on running radio ads
eight months after you were elected. Of course,
this is the anniversary, eight months today.
Last year at this time, you asked for Chris
Stockwell's resignation because he used riding
association money as part payment for a working
vacation as Minister of Energy. Your claim was
that people who donated to the riding association
received a tax receipt -- a cost to taxpayers.
Now, just today, radio ads costing $100,000
of tax-receiptable funds are being aired across
Ontario. In these ads you try to justify the
albatross budget health care premium that you
have personally hung around the necks of both
our Prime Minister and every working family
in the province of Ontario. How can you, of
all people, the one who criticized Stockwell
on the one hand and then on the other hand has
run taxpayer-funded, partisan radio ads trying
to justify the worst budget in the province
of Ontario?
Hon Dalton McGuinty (Premier, Minister
of Intergovernmental Affairs): I recall
that after the Magna budget this government
spent millions of dollars -- and I'm talking
about glossy householders and radio ads. Not
everybody is going to be able to hear that ad,
because they are busy, but I thought maybe I
would give it to them here now. It says:
"I'm Dalton McGuinty, and I want you to
know that every penny of Ontario's new health
care premium will go to health care. It'll mean
shorter waits for radiation and chemotherapy,
nine new MRI sites, home care for 95,000 more
Ontarians, meningitis vaccinations for children,
8,000 new full-time nursing positions, and together
we're going to build a health care system we
can all be proud of."
Interjections.
The Speaker (Hon Alvin Curling): Order.
A point of order from the member from Simcoe-Grey.
Interjections.
The Speaker: If you rise --
I'm going to warn you, and the next time you
do that again, I'm going to name you.
The member from Simcoe-Grey.
Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe-Grey):
On a point of privilege, I guess, Mr Speaker:
I just want you to look into the comments that
were made by the member for Etobicoke North,
Mr Qaadri, in terms of, is it not illegal to
ask anyone for the colour of their skin when
they're applying for an --
The Speaker: Order. That's
not a point of privilege and not a point of
order.
