Premier Dalton McGuinty says the cash-strapped province should consider expanding the end of banked sick days beyond just teachers to include police and firefighters.

“Given our fiscal reality, given the significant deficit, given the slow growing economy, given all the uncertainty that prevails in the global economy, we’ve got to look at public sector compensation,” McGuinty said Wednesday.

“I’m saying we’ve got to hit the pause button and we’ve got to revisit things like bankable sick days,” he said during a tour of an Ossington Ave. school.

McGuinty made his comments at St. Luke Catholic School, which is staffed by members of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, a union that has already settled with the government.

With the help of the Progressive Conservatives, the minority Liberals are trying to ram through legislation to freeze teachers’ wages, stop unused sick days from being cashed in upon retirement, impose three unpaid days off, and halve the number of annual sick days to 10.

MPPs took the unusual step of extending the legislative sitting until midnight Wednesday to try to expedite its passage before teachers’ contracts roll over on Saturday, incurring $473 million in additional costs.

“Let me clarify that we have no new money for pay. We have more money for our hospitals, we have more money for expanding home care, we have more money for rolling our full-day kindergarten,” said McGuinty, whose government is saddled with a $14.8-billion deficit.

His musings about police and firefighters possibly sharing the pain when their various contracts are renegotiated were backed by Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, who wants a wage freeze for all 1.06 million Ontario public servants.

“Well, it seems to be a bit of a scramble,” Hudak said of the premier’s actions.

“For nine years, Dalton has thrown money at every problem that was out there and . . . he’s just run out of money,” he said.

“We need a comprehensive approach across the board when it comes to pay and benefits in the public sector. Whether you’re a teacher, doctor, a firefighter, police officer, I think it should be fair and equal.”

In previous election campaigns, members of the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association have followed the Liberal bus around the province, wearing yellow “Fire Fighters for McGuinty” T-shirts and doing crowd control in tense situations, such as protests outside Grit rallies.

The Ontario Association of Police Service Boards welcomed McGuinty’s proposal.

“Premier McGuinty said that municipalities should look at banking of sick days for police and firefighters in their municipal services to control costs. We agree with the premier’s comments that municipal forces need to curb costs,” the association said.

On Tuesday, about 5,000 teachers demonstrated on the front lawn of Queen’s Park against the legislation.

Frustrated educators, whose unions enthusiastically supported McGuinty in the 2003, 2007, and 2011 elections, chanted “liar, liar” when the premier’s name was mentioned from the dais.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, whose party is the only one in the legislature opposing the wage-freeze bill, again warned that stripping teachers of collective bargaining rights is unconstitutional.

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“This sort of simplistic, reckless plan is likely to be thrown out by the courts and cost us hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Horwath.

“Everybody in Ontario, including the premier, knows that pay freezes have already been agreed to by the teachers,” she said, adding the Liberals’ heavy-handedness is posturing for next Thursday’s byelections in Kitchener—Waterloo and Vaughan.

“Everybody knows that the premier’s plan has everything to do with winning byelections and nothing to do with helping kids in the classroom.”

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