QUEEN’S PARK – With the release of new jobless figures, Ontario’s unemployment rate has now been higher than the national average for five straight years, PC Economic Development and Innovation Critic Monte McNaughton said today.

Friday’s StatsCan report shows Ontario lost another 1,700 full-time jobs in December, meaning that since the October 2011 election the province has lost 45,000 full-time jobs.

“Today’s job figures confirm what we have said all along,” McNaughton said. “Dalton McGuinty cannot keep blaming Europe and the US for Ontario’s worsening jobs crisis.”

The pain began back in 2007, almost two years before the global recession started, McNaughton stressed: “The Premier must quit stalling and stop the blame game.”

It doesn’t have to be this way, McNaughton said: “Tim Hudak and the Ontario PC Caucus have a concrete plan – a plan that we’ve relentlessly championed – to combat the job crisis head on, get Ontarians working again and return our province to its rightful place as the economic engine of Canada.”

McNaughton noted that Hudak and the Ontario PC Caucus have put forward a number of positive solutions including:

• appointing a Job Creation Task Force that brings forward new ideas on job creation
• guaranteeing tax relief for entrepreneurs, small businesses and job creators
• rolling back the regulatory burden – the highest in Canada – by one-third over three years, and
• modernizing Ontario’s apprenticeships system to create 200,000 new skilled trades jobs

“We need urgent action to get the 565,000 men and women who have lost their jobs working again, so they can provide for their families, rebuild meaningful careers and compete in the global economy,” McNaughton added.

“Our plan will help restore Ontario’s once sought-after standing as the best place for businesses to invest, expand and create jobs.

“As the McGuinty Liberals have no plan of their own, we urge them to take ours.”