Mauro "opposition parties have found religion ... "

Queen's Park, ON -- Thunder Bay Atikokan MPP Bill Mauro was up in the Ontario Legislature on Wednesday with a Member's Statement. Here is the text of the statement by Mr. Mauro: PUBLIC TRANSIT Mr. Bill Mauro: It appears that both of the opposition parties have found religion when it comes to mass transit in Ontario. Just yesterday, we heard a Conservative member tell the Legislature that he had discovered the importance to Thunder Bay of the recently announced city of Toronto contract that went to Bombardier. This apparent epiphany is a bit difficult to listen to. That member and that government while in office publicly announced that they were no longer in the public transit business. Predictably, for eight or nine years, nothing happened through the TTC. Then there's the NDP, those wonderful front-runners, who, when they see an issue that has legs and might be successful, like to appear to be on the front end. But only a little over a year ago, this issue was so unimportant to the NDP that they did not even include mention of it in their election platform materials. The report card on this is very clear: a Liberal platform in 2003 that committed to get back into public transit, a policy that has led directly to two major contracts landing in Thunder Bay-one for $700 million, with 200 million provincial dollars, creating 300 new jobs for five years, and just one month ago, a $56-million contract, with 100% provincial money, for 20 new GO Transit buses. I've been working on, and will continue to work on, the recently announced $1.2-billion contract-w hich has the possibility to grow to $3 billion-that can create several hundred new jobs at Bombardier. Our Liberal government, through Dalton McGuinty, has been supporting mass transit in Thunder Bay and creating jobs there since 2003. We welcome the recently converted-