“Hudak right on labour.”
-The Ottawa Sun (June 30, 2012)

BRAMPTON – Ontario can once again be the economic engine of Confederation but only if we get the fundamentals right – and central to this is to modernize the province’s outdated labour laws, Ontario PC Small Business and Red Tape Critic Todd Smith today.

Smith made the comments while touring New Millennium Tire, a local Brampton business which specializes in a range of automobile services. StatsCanada confirms Toronto’s unemployment rate (which includes Brampton and Peel Region) is nearly nine per cent – above the provincial average of 8.9 per cent and among the highest in Ontario and Canada.

“The world has changed, and our economy has changed with it,” Smith said. “To help Ontario regain its competitive edge, Tim Hudak and the Ontario PC Caucus recently unveiled Paths to Prosperity: Flexible Labour Markets – the second in a series of PC discussion papers on bold new ideas for creating jobs,” added Smith, a member of the Ontario PC Jobs Taskforce.

The paper proposes action in four key areas: giving the individual worker a choice on becoming or remaining a union member; making union leaders more accountable to unionized employees; modernizing tendering rules to open up more government work to private sector competition; and reforming Ontario’s workplace agencies for a more flexible workforce and job creation.

York-Simcoe MPP Julia Munro added “It’s time to get Ontarians back to work. We need a comprehensive integrated plan that updates labour laws and creates the right environment for jobs and growth.”

Other ideas put forward by the Ontario PCs to create jobs and kick-start growth by getting the fundamentals right include:

· Reining in spending with a mandatory public sector wage freeze and allow businesses and private sector unions to compete for government contracts;

· Reducing the cost of doing business by lowering taxes and treat affordable energy as a cornerstone of economic growth;

· Changing the attitude in government by welcoming job creators, not deterring them with regulations and red tape; and

· Creating 200,000 jobs in the skilled trades by allowing employers to take on more apprentices. This means more electricians, ironworkers and carpenters.

Smith concluded “We need a growing economy across Ontario to ensure economic prosperity here in Brampton and throughout Peel Region.”