Byelection drubbing people's response to Wynne arrogance: Thomas

TORONTO, Feb. 12, 2016 /CNW/ - "Yesterday, Whitby-Oshawa delivered a stinging rebuke to Kathleen Wynne. They told her the people of Ontario, not Ed Clark, govern in this province." That is the clear message OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas took away from the rout of the Liberal candidate in Whitby-Oshawa.

"It's exactly three years since Kathleen Wynne became Premier," he continued. "People believed her when she cast herself as a progressive, a Premier who would dialogue, a Premier who would listen. She would be the empathetic leader, the politician who would do politics differently.

"Well, 36 months later, we know what a crock all of that was. In fact, Ontarians have never suffered a more arrogant, more aloof, more disconnected Premier than Kathleen Wynne. She has no regard for the thoughts and concerns of ordinary people. Rather, when questioned on countless scandals and police investigations, she adopts an offended air of self‑righteousness that beggars belief and insults the intelligence of the people of this province.

"Wynne has made herself a shill for corporate interests at the expense of millions of ordinary Ontarians. She's launched a direct attack on our public services through an aggressive program of privatization that has cost Ontarians in excess of $10 billion – profits that now line CEO pockets instead of building hospitals, strengthening home care, improving education and expanding transit.

"Now Wynne wants to surrender Hydro One to profiteers – without consent, without consultation, thereby robbing the province of a further $1 billion annually, and jeopardizing service and cost. And she shamelessly tells Ontarians that this will be good for them. Does she think the people are that gullible?

"Maybe she does. Two days before the byelection, Kathleen Wynne gambled that Justin Trudeau's sunny ways would blind Whitby‑Oshawa residents to her record. It backfired. On the very day of the election, she hoped wine in grocery stores would numb us to her legacy of mismanagement and waste. It only made us more sober.

"The Liberals just learned you can't fool all of the people all of the time. She didn't fool the people of Whitby‑Oshawa. And unless she fires Ed Clark and starts looking out for ordinary Ontarians, she's not going to fool the people of this province in 2018."

SOURCE Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU)

Warren (Smokey) Thomas, 613-329-1931