For Immediate Release                                          

January 18, 2010

(Nepean, ON) - Ottawa has lost a voice around the cabinet table after the recent resignation of Jim Watson and the shuffle to accommodate his departure, leaving only one Cabinet Minister to represent the nation’s capital in the McGuinty government.

“McGuinty’s math doesn’t add up for Ottawa.  Traditionally Ottawa has had two seats around the cabinet table, but today the McGuinty Liberals dealt a blow to Ottawa when they reduced our voice from two Ministers to just one.  Compare that to Toronto with four and smaller regions like Hamilton/ Niagara and London with two Ministers’s each,” said MacLeod.

This is a series in a list of recent slights to the City which include the delay in opening the Cancer Centre at the Queensway Carleton Hospital, the on again off again support for the City’s master transit plan and ignoring Ottawa in the upcoming round of budget consultations.  The Liberals even changed the location of their annual meeting from Ottawa to Toronto this past weekend so they could instead canvass for a Liberal candidate.

“For a City of close to one million, the McGuinty Liberals continue to ignore the interests of Ottawa and the composition of their cabinet drives that point home,” concluded MacLeod.

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