Will McGuinty's Liberals retain their own comfy salary increases and pensions?

CTV reported in "McGuinty vows to protect core services as cuts loom" (Jan.5, 2012):
"Health and education will remain funding priorities as Ontario makes deep cuts to trim a $16-billion deficit, but doctors, teachers and everyone on the public payroll has to do their bit to help, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Thursday.
"We're all going to have a role to play if we're gong to be as effective as we need to be in terms of strengthening this economy and ensuring that we're getting ever more value for the public dollars that are being invested," McGuinty said at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Economist Don Drummond has said he will make some difficult and unpopular recommendations in his review of the province's public services, including spending cuts as deep as 30 per cent in some ministries.
However, McGuinty suggested the Liberal government will not follow through on all of the several hundred recommendations Drummond is expected to make later this month.
"Mr. Drummond's responsibility of course is to advise and ours is to decide, so there's a distinction, first of all, to be drawn between his responsibility and our responsibility in government," said McGuinty.
"We will ask the legislature to help us by giving the best advice on those (recommendations), and we also want to give Ontarians an opportunity to comment as well."
The deep spending cuts expected in the spring budget will not have the same impact in schools and hospitals as the cuts implemented by former Conservative premier Mike Harris in the 1990s, said McGuinty.
"We will do everything we can to protect our health care, protect our education and put in place the kind of measures that can support a stronger and growing economy."
The New Democrats were concerned that a squabble over the makeup of legislative committees in the minority government meant there were no pre-budget hearings going on, work they said should be done now in conjunction with Drummond's report.
"I'm pretty concerned about the dysfunction around here, and the fact we're not having those pre-budget conversations early on," NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said in an interview.
"There's no doubt priorities have to be set, and people can rely on New Democrats to fight for things like our health-care system, and making sure that everyday folks who are struggling don't bear the brunt of this upcoming budget."
The Progressive Conservatives said they have no confidence that McGuinty will make the spending cuts that Drummond is expected to recommend in his report.
"We don't have any inclination to believe that Dalton McGuinty and his government are going to make the tough decisions necessary to get our fiscal situation back in line," said Opposition critic Rob Leone.
McGuinty left the door open Thursday to delaying a planned cut in the province's corporate tax rate, from 11.5 to 10 per cent, which is scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, 2013.
When asked if he would delay the business tax cut so companies "share the pain" of the looming spending cuts, McGuinty said only that he didn't want to speculate on what would be in the spring budget to be introduced in March. The premier then dismissed suggestions that he was backing off the scheduled tax cut.
"I appreciate your interpretation of my words, but I'll just use the words," McGuinty told reporters.
"We want to be fair when it comes to finding the best way possible to addressing our economic challenge."
The government must "hit the pause button" on the corporate tax cuts, said Horwath.
"They can't complain that the cupboard's bare and then continue with their corporate tax giveaways," she said.
"As long as you keep letting corporate taxes hit rock bottom and forgo those revenues, then you're not taking a balanced approach."
McGuinty was at the university to announce people could apply online starting Thursday for the government's 30 per cent tuition rebates for college and university students from families with incomes under $160,000 a year.
The Tories said Ontario cannot afford the $420-million annual cost of tuition cuts.
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So now Dalton and Jim Bradley will soon be cutting, cutting, cutting, when before the election they were spending spending spending... what hypocrites.
What will McGuinty's own Liberal MPP's sacrifice? How about retroactively removing all their salary increases since 2003, putting millions back into Ontario's treasury, as well as cutting the MPP's pensions?
Maybe Liberal Jim Bradley would like to proudly show Ontarians the size of his pension, if only Mike Metcalfe/Wendy Williscraft would nicely ask.
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