Fact Check: Liberal candidate refusing to answer questions about lavish expenses

TORONTO, May 15, 2014 /CNW/ - Ontario Liberal candidate Mitzie Hunter is refusing to answer questions about lavish expenses, including billing taxpayers for a trip to California to attend a conference that was reportedly held in Toronto. (http://goo.gl/OhcnlO)

The luxury indulgences were charged to the public purse while the candidate was an executive at Toronto Community Housing, which was slammed by a devastating Auditor's report over a culture of entitlement and out-of-control spending. The average income of Toronto Community Residents is less than $20,000, while the Liberal candidate pocketed $178,000 annually, about nine times more than the average family in community housing.

The Liberal candidate is refusing to answer questions about sending Toronto Community Housing the bills for:

• Expenses for hotels and meals in California for a conference that reportedly took place in Toronto;
• Hotel bills at the luxury Chateau Laurier in Ottawa;
• Nearly $800 for personal auto repairs;
• Meals expensed to taxpayers because she was with colleagues; and
• $624.75 in legal fees to settle her employment contract.

The mandate of Toronto Community Housing, the largest social housing provider in Canada, "is to provide clean, safe, well-maintained, affordable homes," for Torontonians who need it, but Mitzie Hunter seemed to think Toronto Community Housing was there to help her, not the other way around.

The Liberals are out of touch and they've wasted tax dollars. New Democrats will stop waste and respect Ontarians' tax dollars so we can put people first.

SOURCE: New Democratic Party of Ontario

Media Contact: Alex Callahan, 416-591-5455 x2386