2007-10-06                


PC Leader John Tory was in Sarnia today where he blasted the McGuinty Liberals
over massive cost over-runs which saw the local hospital expansion
project
balloon to $320 million from the original estimate of $276 million.
With Tory
is local candidate Bob Bailey (CNW Group/John Tory 2007 Campaign)

SARNIA — Spiralling costs, lack of accountability and incompetence
have made
Sarnia’s new hospital “ground zero” for Dalton McGuinty’s style
of management,
Conservative leader John Tory said here today.

“The Dalton McGuinty school of mismanagement is closing down next
Wednesday,”
Tory told a small group of supporters outside the troubled project.

Expansion of the Bluewater Health Centre, originally estimated to cost
$140
million has ballooned to $319 million, raising a firestorm of
controversy and
a political headache for Liberal Caroline Di Cocco. Di Cocco is accused
of
knowing about cost-overruns in August but suppressing that information.

Conservatives have dubbed it McGuinty’s “Bluewatergate.”

With Di Cocco under fire, both Tory and NDP leader Howard Hampton have
made
late-in-the-campaign stops to blast what they call Liberal
mismanagement of
the project. They see Sarnia-Lambton as up for grabs.

“She has continued to delay, deny and obscure the facts,” Tory said
in his bid
to bolster the hopes of Conservative candidate Bob Bailey.
   

Tory described as a “shaggy dog story” Di Cocco’s assertion she
was unaware of
a letter sent her in August by the ministry of health advising the cost
by
then had risen to $276 million.

He said local ratepayers who have wanted redevelopment of the hospital
for at
least 15 years — and have raised $40 million for it — deserve better.

The facility is a partnership with the private sector, with prime
contractor
EllisDon of London.

“Skyrocketing costs. Deceptive information. No results. This has
become the
McGuinty mantra for health care.”

In North Bay, he said, a hospital project has ballooned from $221
million to
$551 million.

Tory said construction should proceed immediately and an in-depth audit
undertaken, involving the OPP, if necessary. And the province, he said,
should
cover all the cost-overrun and not local citizens.

On his way back to finish his campaigning in the greater Toronto area,
Tory
also stopped at a coffee shop in Strathroy where he posed for pictures
with
seven-year-old Jonathan Sibley of Ilderton whose parents can’t afford
the
treatment he needs for autism. He gave the youngster a tour of his
campaign bus.

And Tory also heard the story of town resident Henry Twynstra, 73, who
had to
sell his home to cover the $40,000 cost to remove a brain tumour in
Cleveland
when he couldn’t receive timely treatment at home. A lifelong
Liberal,
Twynstra said the health system is unfair and after meeting Tory said
he plans
to vote for him.

Tory is planning stops in Burlington and Barrie before ending his day
in Toronto.
   
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