Mr. Speaker, in Ontario jobs are up because taxes are down. Mike Harris' government yesterday announced its blueprint plan to keep Ontario on the right track.
From 1995 to 1998, Mike Harris has cut taxes 69 times, including a 30% cut in income tax rates. This was the largest tax cut in Ontario history and the first real increase in take home pay for the average Ontarian. These cuts produced the dramatic result of 540,000 new jobs being created in Ontario in under four years. That is more new jobs than the combined populations of London, Kingston and Sudbury. This puts Mike Harris's Tories ahead of schedule in their five-year plan to create 725,000 new jobs. Most of all, the Harris government's efforts to improve the province's fiscal management means more money for education and health care for all of Ontario.
Ontarians will ask if they are better off than they were four years ago. Yes, they are. They will also ask who the strongest leader is. That is Michael Harris. Less tax, balanced budgets—