QUEEN’S PARK – Instead of taking urgent action to address the province’s fiscal crisis, the McGuinty government wasted this past week politicking and using students as pawns in a game designed to influence by-election results, Ontario PC Finance Critic Peter Shurman said today.

“This past week has proven to be nothing more than another episode of the ‘McGuinty Show’ – an attempt to pretend like the government is taking action, when in fact it’s nothing more than a circus,” Shurman said. “Why did the Premier recall the Legislature early if he wasn’t prepared to take urgent, immediate action to rein in reckless overspending?”

Shurman said the Ontario PCs were eager to begin the legislative session early in order to introduce real reform that would lead Ontario to a path of economic recovery and fiscal stability. Instead, government MPPs sat on their hands, tabled motions re-pledging their commitment to programs already in existence and stonewalled questions about the ongoing Ornge scandal.

“The fact is teachers knew we had to rein in wages if we want to put this province on the right track and we could have done this back in the spring if the government supported PC legislation calling for a wage freeze for the entire public sector,” Shurman noted. “The government’s education bill addresses only one of 4,000 collective agreements that must be renewed. Meanwhile Ontarians are paying millions of dollars for perks like banked sick days for other public servants. The McGuinty government keeps digging deeper and deeper into their pockets. Ontarians should be outraged.”

The government needs to step up and support the Ontario PC plan to Freeze, Fix, Reduce – starting with an immediate, across-the-board public sector wage freeze, Shurman concluded. “The clock is ticking, and we need real action.”

Watch Peter Shurman’s Stop the Overspending video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-qAJbjXKRc