Chris Savard

Chris Savard
Seaway News

December 29, 2006:

Premier Dalton McGuinty and Health Minister George Smitherman promised to reduce wait times in Ontario and have spent the last three years and millions of taxpayers’ dollars trying to convince Ontarians that wait times are going down.

Here is a timeline of their deception:

• October 2003 – The Promise: Dalton McGuinty, promised to reduce wait times for Ontarian for five “priority procedures. (Liberal platform on Health Care, 2003)
• October 24, 2005 – The Claim: The McGuinty Liberals launch a website to promote reduced wait times. Smitherman is quoted as saying, “We often hear calls for reliable, up-to-date information. Well, we’ve delivered.”
• Spring 2006 – Busted: Liberals are caught using the wrong numbers. The PC Caucus questions the McGuinty Liberals about rising wait times in communities across the province using a Canada-wide standard of the 90th percentile wait time rather than the misleading average and median numbers used by the McGuinty Liberals. After months of criticisms about the use of this data, the McGuinty Liberals relent and begin using the 90th percentile numbers.
• Summer and Fall 2006 – Misleading Ads: McGuinty government launches multi-million dollar wait time advertisements. The McGuinty Liberals ran newspaper and television ads that claimed that by calling a toll-free number Ontarians could find out how to reduce their wait times. However, calls to this number revealed that this was in no way possible. People were told there was no way to reduce their wait time. Over $2 million was spent on these ads that claimed that wait times were down and that “the doctor will see you now.” While repeatedly asked, the McGuinty Liberals refused to pull the ad.
• December 5, 2006 – Deception Exposed: The independent Auditor-General releases his report and calls the wait times numbers “misleading” and says that they should be taken with a “grain of salt.”
• December 8, 2006 – Decpetion Exposed Again: Another independent agency calls the ads inaccurate. Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) responds to a complaint about the wait times and rules that the television and newspaper ads made “inaccurate claims and omitted relevant information.”

In response to this issue, Progressive Conservative party Leader John Tory was recently quoted as saying, “Dalton McGuinty has been caught red-handed misleading Ontarians about wait times. It’s clear the McGuinty Liberals haven’t learned their lesson about misrepresenting the truth and have continued to mislead Ontarians with more false advertising. This is just like Dalton McGuinty’s “I won’t raise your taxes” election ads, but this time they have used millions of taxpayers’ dollars to spread false information about how terrific they are. This time they have been caught well before, not after the election.”

Dalton McGuinty and his government owe Ontarians an apology and they owe it to all of us to publish a retraction.

chris@chrissavard.ca

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