November 1, 2006
MEMBERS' STATEMENTS
GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Mr. Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): The McGuinty government has gotten so used to wasting government money that they have forgotten where it comes from.
It comes from hard-working taxpayers like the farmers in my riding, like the people who work hard at the CAMI plant in Ingersoll or at DDM Plastics in Tillsonburg. These people pay their taxes because they want education for their children and quality health care.

No one that I've talked to asked the McGuinty government to spend $6 million of their money on dropping the "C" from the OLGC. They were happy with the old trillium, and they certainly didn't agree to have $219,000 of their money spent on redesigning it. They all remember the commercial where McGuinty promised that he wouldn't raise their taxes, but none of them asked the Liberals to spend their hard-earned tax dollars on giving that advertising company fat contracts. They don't understand, and neither do I, why that company, Bensimon Byrne, now gets paid a retainer of $78,000 a month for a contract with the same description as the contract for which they used to get $38,000 a month. The McGuinty government seems to think it's all right to use taxpayers' dollars to extend appointments for their friends long beyond the term of government and give them all raises, some as much as 300%.

The McGuinty government has shown a lack of concern for taxpayers by continually breaking their promises. Now it is showing a lack of respect for their hard-earned tax dollars by giving them to their friends.