Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty speaks during the Ontario Municipal Water Association's 2012 Drinking Water Leadership Summit in Toronto on Oct. 24, 2012.Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail
The opposition says Premier Dalton McGuinty misled people when he said he prorogued the Ontario legislature to allow time to negotiate with unions and the Progressive Conservatives on a public sector wage freeze.
It's now been a month since Mr. McGuinty's surprise resignation and prorogation of the legislature, and Tory finance critic Peter Shurman says there have been no talks at all with the Liberal government on a wage freeze.
Mr. Shurman says the real reason Mr. McGuinty prorogued the legislature to avoid hearings into the cancelled gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Finance Minister Dwight Duncan says the Liberals haven't negotiated with the Tories since prorogation because they haven't had to, and because they don't like the opposition's approach to things.
The Conservatives want the government to legislate a wage freeze for nearly 1.3 million public sector workers, but the Liberals fear that would be over-turned by the courts.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says people across the province are angry that the legislature has been shut down until sometime next year and know that's where the government can be held to account.