Ms. Lisa MacLeod: My question is to the Premier. Premier McGuinty, you keep wasting and spending taxpayer resources while the Ontario PC caucus has a committed plan to cut wasteful spending. Two weeks ago, the Ontario PC leader introduced his sunset review bill that would keep programs that work, fix the ones that need fixing, and take those programs that are beyond repair and put those resources back into front-line health care and relief for families.

You rejected our good plan when it was tabled. A week later you hastily assembled your own plan, led by a Bay Street banker who says you approached him just two days earlier. The question: How can we take you seriously, and why are you treating spending restraint like a public relations scheme instead of fixing the programs for Ontario families?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I appreciate the question, but I think maybe I missed something; maybe there should be a news flash; something should go onto the wire right away. There's a reference to some kind of a plan that they put out, and that's the first I hear of it here.

But here's what I do know: I do know that a very good predictor of the future is what has happened in the past. This is a party that's absolutely committed to getting rid of the Ontario health premium. That's $3 billion that would come out of our health care system. That would result in the loss of thousands of nurses, hospital closures, and longer wait times. This is also a party that is committed to the shutdown of full-day kindergarten in the province of Ontario. That will stand to the detraction of some 247,000 four- and five-year-old children.

Again, we have a plan. It's a solid plan. We've been acting on the plan. We'd like to ask: Where's their plan?

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: In case he has missed something, here's the news flash: He has closed hospital ERs, he has shut down schools and he has raised our taxes, so if you want to talk about best predictors of the future, we'll look at your past and that's what we'll talk about, because you have no ideas of your own to get this spending in this province under control. You've given up trying, so you contracted out the job to a Bay Street lawyer who came up with the HST that you're forcing Ontario families to pay. But this wasn't, of course, before you looked over the shoulder of Tim Hudak and cribbed the notes for how to reduce spending in this province and get front-line care back on track. But even then, the issue that you're putting forward is half-baked, with a half-baked measure.

The question is: Why should Ontario families trust Bay Street bankers accountable to the Premier to do a better job of protecting front-line health care when MPPs in this chamber-

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you.

Premier?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I'd like to say that their plan is half-baked, but it's not even half-baked. I don't think it's a quarter baked or an eighth baked, for that matter; I don't think it's been put into the oven yet.

The question that we need to ask ourselves is: What is it that the PCs of Ontario are so afraid of sharing with the people of Ontario? Why won't they come clean with their specifics? It's simply because they want to reduce the HST. For every point that we take out of that, that's $3 billion. That will result in cuts to our health care, closures to hospitals, loss of nurses, loss of teachers, closure of schools and a general deterioration of the quality of public services which we are so committed to. That's why they don't want to talk about the specifics of their plan.