Premier Kathleen Wynne’s bet that $400 million can revive a horse-racing industry devastated by previous Liberal policies will not pay off, the Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats charge.

Tory Leader Tim Hudak dismissed Friday’s announcement of a lifeline for the troubled sector as too little too late.

“They have displaced tens of thousands of Ontario men and women, tossed them out of work with horse-racing decisions they have made,” Hudak told reporters at Queen’s Park.

“Now, two years later, they’re coming back with some temporary funding as a stop-gap measure,” he said, noting the Liberals have sounded “the final death knell for the Fort Erie” track in his riding.

PC House leader Jim Wilson said a drive through rural Ontario reveals the devastating impact of former premier Dalton McGuinty’s de-funding of horse-racing.

“You literally go along the highways and back roads and you see horse equipment, horse trailers, buggies, everything up for sale in the ditches. A lot of the farms have gone bankrupt and so thousands of people have been thrown out,” said Wilson.

“It’s criminal what they did.”

NDP MPP Taras Natyshak (Essex) said along with Fort Erie, tracks in Ajax, Belleville, Dresden, Leamington, Ottawa, Peterborough, Sarnia, Sudbury, and Woodstock face an uncertain future.

“Kathleen Wynne seems to think she should get credit for acting — but she’s a day late and a dollar short. That horse won’t race,” said Natyshak.

“Some of these tracks have over a hundred years of history and the Liberals are destroying a way of life.”

The opposition criticism came as Wynne toured the Grand River Raceway in Elora to tout a new $400-million, five-year plan to make racing “sustainable and accountable.”

McGuinty had ended the former Slots at Racetracks Program — which gave the tracks $3.7 billion in gaming revenues from 1998 onward — to try to pay down the deficit.

But Wynne said that was a mistake and Queen’s Park has an obligation to rural Ontario to help a sector that employs as many as 60,000 people.

“This is an industry that has a long history in Ontario — there are tens of thousands of jobs that are part of the industry,” said the premier, whose initiative will give the tracks about half what they used to receive.

“It absolutely is responsible,” she said, defending the scheme at a time when the Liberals face an $11.7 billion deficit and criticism for spending up to $1.1 billion to cancel gas-fired power plants in Oakville and Mississauga just before the 2011 election.

Friday’s news conference was the result of recommendations by the tripartite Horse Racing Industry Transition Panel, which included, respectively, former Liberal, Tory, and NDP ministers John Wilkinson, John Snobelen, and Elmer Buchanan.

Buchanan, agriculture minister in the government of former New Democratic premier Bob Rae, will succeed retiring Ontario Racing Commission (ORC) chair Rod Seiling.

The commission will be restructured into separate divisions. One will continue to regulate racing while the other will distribute funding and work with the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. (OLG) to boost the sport.

Rod Phillips, president and CEO of the provincial gambling agency, said the funding would “help ensure a vibrant and sustainable horse racing sector in Ontario.”

“OLG will commit the necessary resources to implement and execute the government’s plan,” said Phillips.

Sue Leslie, president and chair of the Ontario Horse Racing Industry Association, said it’s “been a very difficult couple of years” and said the sector is not out of the woods yet.

“There are still many aspects . . . which need further dialogue and clarification especially in relation to grassroots racing, the survival of racing at Fort Erie Race Track and securing the necessary investment to ensure the breeding industry survives its severe decline,” said Leslie

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