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Tim Hudak’s one million jobs promised vastly overestimates the jobs the plan would create, and relies on right to work legislation that Hudak has said he won’t implement, a new study by Unifor Economist Jim Stanford has found.
The Ontario Progressive Conservative leader hired US economist Benjamin Zycher, well-known for his love of right to work laws, to estimate job gains from the million-jobs plan.
Zycher in turn relied on a Fraser Institute report measuring the supposed economic freedom of US states and Canadian provinces – which wrongly assumes there’s a job boost from bringing in right to work legislation.
“Zycher is suggesting that if Ontario pursued fiscal, social, and labour market policies similar to those of places like Mississippi and Arkansas … economic “freedom” would be enhanced, and Ontario’s economy would become stronger,” Stanford writes in the paper, Trojan Horse: Benjamin Zycher, Right-to-Work Laws, and the Ontario PC Platform.
“Never mind that incomes, economic conditions, health, and other indicators are far superior in Ontario to those right-to-work jurisdictions.”
Besides, Stanford said, Hudak said in February that he would not pursue right to work legislation if he becomes premier – so either Hudak is still committed to the idea, or the analysis is even more deeply flawed.
Stanford also found that while Zycher predicted a one-time boost of 10,600 jobs due to regulatory changes (including right to work laws), the Conservative campaign inflated the number to 84,800 jobs, or 10,600 in each of the next eight years.
The study was cited in a column by Jerry Dias in the Toronto Star on May 30: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/05/29/anyone_but_tim_hudak_for_ontario_premier.html
To read Stanford’s study, go to: http://www.unifor.org/sites/default/files/brief-statements/zycher_and_million_jobs_final.pdf
