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Ontario has a range of other assets, including shares in General Motors purchased during the recession, a large real estate portfolio and Crown corporations, that the province can sell when the time is right, added Sousa.

The cash-strapped government, facing an $11.3-billion deficit, will sell the headquarters of the LCBO and will consider selling the OPG building in downtown Toronto as it tries to raise badly needed money.

“You can almost look at this as in two phases: share ownerships of a Fortune 500 corporation and some real estate assets that we own, those are things that we can start moving on more quickly,” said Sousa.

“Those other ones, however, require greater care, and we need experts to ensure that we protect the interests of Ontarians.”

The Progressive Conservatives said the ideas Sousa talked about Friday are exactly what they proposed in 2012, which the Liberals made fun of at the time.

“They not only rebuffed it, they mocked us for it,” said PC finance critic Vic Fedeli.

“This is yet another pre-election announcement, and they’re not going to implement this. It’s yet another panel that they’re going to ignore.”

The Liberals have set up literally dozens of advisory panels so they don’t actually have to deal with issues, and then they ignore the recommendations from the people they appoint to advise them, added Fedeli.

“This is just to kick the can down the road past the next election,” he said.

The minority Liberal government will need the NDP’s help to get the spring budget passed and avoid an election, but New Democrat Peter Tabuns said Friday they won’t support any moves to privatize public assets.