Did McGuinty's Liberals ever actually hire 8,000 nurses?

The London Free Press (Sept. 27, 2007) wrote: “In 2003” the PC’s said, “Dalton McGuinty promised to hire 8,000 more nurses. By the most generous estimates, his own, he’s hired only 5,200 nurses.”

The Toronto Sun (Sept.7, 2007) reported on this question which was posed on McGuinty's own re-election website "dalton.ca": "You said you were going to hire 8,000 new nurses, but so far, you have hired just more than half of them" - a clear admission by McGuinty he hasn't kept his own promise. Accordingly, McGuinty responds: "So far, we've put the money in place to hire 5,200 nurses" and "we're going to reach our target of over 8,000 new nurses in Ontario." "
His inconsistent site, like the Liberal campaign, was disingenouous, if not an outright lie. As the Sun wrote, " McGuinty, having admitted he broke his 2003 promise to hire 8,000 new nurses on one part of his site, then claims to have kept it on another. But, hey, when has he ever lied to us before?" Is McGuinty the only disingenuous one?

I was listening to CFRB 1010 radio on Mon. Oct.1, 2007 at around 8:35 pm, where candidates were allowed a one-minute opportunity to give their election spiel on air. Liberal Harinder Takhar from Mississauga-Erindale was on, and he unmistakably also said that his Liberals hired “8,000” nurses. The perception, repeated often enough, becomes the faux-reality! Here’s what was posted on Takhar’s own re-election web site, “Vote Takhar.com” in Oct. 2007: “Since 2003, the Ontario Liberals have hired 6,100 new direct care staff and 2,300 nurses in long term care homes, raised the daily raw food allowance to $7.00 a day, passed legislation to strengthen enforcement and enhance the quality of life for residents in long term care homes, and have put 7,712 new long term care beds into operation.”

Is Takhar claiming that 5,700 other Ontario nurses (of the alleged 8,000) were hired in other healthcare areas? Where, specifically? Does anyone know? Are "direct care staff "actually nurses?

Which numbers, if any, are true? McGuinty's, which are off by 2,800, or Takhar's, which are off 5,700? When can we believe anything these Liberals say?