Johny's Back In Town

Leader of the Ontario PC Party and Leader of the Official Opposition John Tory is in North Bay this weekend for the party’s Northern Summit.

Tory is delivering on a promise made earlier in the year to host a summit addressing the special issues that face Northern Ontario. Tory also felt that former party leader Mike Harris’s old riding served as a good back drop.

Tory held a media event at Pro-North on Birches Road today where he said progress on the regional hospital is just one of the issues that tops his list of concerns for the North.

“The progress is disappointing because we are supposed to have construction underway by now. It just means though that I’m going to have to spend another 6 months or 8 months coming up here to continue to visit to make absolutely sure those shovels do indeed go in the ground next spring.”

“Because they were supposed to be in the ground before now, I’m going to keep on top of this because these people in this community need a new hospital period,” Tory states.

Tory, who says he has been to the North twice the amount of Premier Dalton McGuinty, pledges to continue until the next election campaign gets under way.

“I’m going to continue to sit down, as I do every stop, with a group of Aboriginal leaders, farmers, business people, tourist operators, whoever and listen to them,” he explains.

“We’re going to keep doing that and that will help us to keep on top of things and also to get ideas that will form part of our program for the election next year.”

Tory says the goal of the summit is for him and the Ontario PC party to walk away with ideas from the people that live and work in the area as to how they (PCs)can produce results.

“For years and years under frankly all parties there have been all kinds of programs and photo opportunities, Mr McGuinty has raised it to a new art form ‘how to have a photo opportunity but not do anything,” states Tory.

“I want to make sure we get some programs that get real results, get some highways actually built, get some hospitals actually built, but most importantly of all some investment and some jobs that last beyond the end of some pilot project. We need real jobs and real investment here.”

Tory will give his keynote address at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Best Western on Lakeshore Drive.