QUEEN’S PARK – With no shortage of urgent provincial matters that require immediate action, Tim Hudak, MPP for Niagara West-Glanbrook, criticized Premier Dalton McGuinty today for extending the winter recess of the Ontario Legislature to March 17.

The House has only sat for 10 days since the Oct. 10, 2007 election. It was originally supposed to resume this Monday, but Premier Dalton McGuinty pushed the date back to St. Patrick’s Day.

Usually in the first year following an election, a government will set a busy agenda to implement its mandate and promptly address the issues of the day. However, by the time the House resumes in March, the McGuinty government will have gone more than five months since the election without passing a single Bill in the Legislature.

“Ontario is losing well-paying manufacturing jobs and hard working families are having trouble making ends meet, yet the Premier still sees fit to delay resuming the House where these issues can be addressed,” Hudak said. “This is a serious sign of a government in danger of going adrift.”

Among the significant and pressing provincial issues Hudak said the McGuinty government must address are: the declining economy and loss of more than 174,000 manufacturing jobs, Greenbelt farmers with thousands of acres of grape and tender fruit and no market to sell them in, and the continued delay of the Mid-Pen Corridor project.

“Any one of these issues is reason enough to resume the Legislature immediately,” Hudak said. “It’s time for this government to get to work.”