Ontario can again lead Canada in competitiveness by getting our economic fundamentals right – and a key step is the reform of outmoded labour laws to create a climate for investment and job creation, PC Leader Tim Hudak said.

Hudak made the comments following a tour of Dupont Canada’s Ajax facility, where 160 employees manufacture paint and other coatings for Honda and Magna automotive products. The region has been hard-hit by Ontario’s troubled economy; unemployment is 9.0 per cent, well above the provincial average, which remains stuck at an unacceptable 7.7 per cent.

Last month, as part of his integrated plan for turning our province around, Hudak unveiled Paths to Prosperity: Flexible Labour Markets – the second in a series of PC discussion papers on bold new ideas for creating jobs.

“The world has changed, and our economy has changed with it,” Hudak said. “But the rules governing the workplace have not.”

The Ontario PC white paper proposes action in four key areas: giving the individual worker a choice on becoming or remaining a union member; making union leaders more accountable to unionized employees; modernizing tendering rules to open up more government work to private sector competition; and reforming Ontario’s workplace agencies for a more flexible workforce and job creation.