TORONTO - NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is promising to cut emergency room wait times in half if the New Democrats win the June 12 Ontario election.
Horwath says an NDP government would hire 250 new nurse practitioners to work in emergency rooms and would create 1,400 more long-term care beds to help ease pressure on wait times.
She says the Liberals wasted millions of dollars in their efforts to reduce ER wait times by spending the money on bureaucrats and executive salaries instead of on front line care.
Horwath says the NDP would also open 50 new 24-hour-a-day family health clinics and would implement a five-day home care guarantee, noting patients discharged from hospitals currently wait from a week to a month.
She says the NDP's plan to reduce ER wait times would cost about $205 million in the first couple of years and grow to $250 million by the third year.
Horwath made the announcement in front of the Ontario legislature this morning with the so-called "hospital row" of University Avenue health care facilities as her backdrop.
Tractorgate?
Meanwhile, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is facing accusations of dangerous driving -- on a tractor.
Wynne was campaigning Tuesday at a farm in southwestern Ontario where she promised new funding for the agriculture sector if the Liberals win the June 12 election.
She drove a blue tractor down a muddy lane on the farm to a waiting bank of journalists and cameras, with farm owner Sandra Vos sitting next to her.
Tractor safety guidelines say drivers should not have any passengers, and not long after Wynne's announcement ended the Progressive Conservatives sent out a news release saying Wynne "set a very bad example."
The Tories cited Health and Safety Guidelines for Ontario Tobacco Producers that farm tractors have killed 250 people on Ontario farms in a "recent fifteen year period," many of them were the result of extra passengers falling off.
Many Twitter users posted a similar photo of PC Leader Tim Hudak sitting on a blue tractor -- with another man standing next to him.
When asked about the Hudak photo, which was taken last year at an agricultural event, the Tories responded that the tractor in that photo wasn't moving.
However, Wynne's spokeswoman later supplied video taken at the event that clearly shows Hudak driving the tractor with a passenger standing beside him.
