OUELLETTE PUSHES TO SAVE TRILLIUM
Calls on McGuinty Liberals to repay taxpayers $219,000, Auditor to investigate

Queen’s Park – Jerry Ouellette MPP, Oshawa today made a push to save the Ontario government’s historic symbol from attempts by the McGuinty Liberals to change it for their own partisan purposes.

“Dalton McGuinty is playing politics with Ontario’s symbol,” said Ouellette. “This is a partisan-based waste of taxpayer’s money and that is why I am calling on the McGuinty Liberals to scrap this change. I have been an MPP for 11 years now and not once have I heard someone say to me that their top priority was a new logo.”

The Progressive Conservative Party launched www.savethetrillium.ca at a Queen’s Park news conference today to give Ontarians an opportunity to send Dalton McGuinty a message about his secretive change to the trillium, which has been Ontario’s symbol for more than 40 years. The new symbol looks very similar to parts of the Ontario Liberal Party logo.

“The McGuinty Liberals should reimburse Ontario taxpayers the $219,000 of government money spent to design this new trillium,” said Ouellette. “There was absolutely no need for this change to be made, Ontario taxpayers did not ask for it and they certainly weren’t consulted about it.”

The new symbol was drawn for $219,000 by Liberal advertising agency Bensimon-Byrne, the same company who created Dalton McGuinty’s infamous “I won’t raise your taxes” campaign ads in the last election. Since the Liberals came to power, Bensimon-Byrne has seen a dramatic increase in business including: