Dear Mr. Hudak,

Let me start off by telling you a little about myself. I am a 28 year old from Hamilton with a beautiful wife, a rambunctious dog and a son on the way … a summer baby; my wife and I can't wait! I am a new homeowner, a passionate educator and an active citizen in my community. I am also one of the 100,000 Ontarians you plan on firing.

You see, I am one of the dozens in my union (I know you don't like that word, sorry) who have been identified as one of the people who would be let go if you go ahead with your Million Jobs Plan. (By the way, as a marketing teacher, I give your people kudos for that name … it's simple, easy to remember and catchy.)

That being said, I was looking for some advice. Where do you suggest I start looking for a new job? As a teacher, I am very good at multitasking, I am very well organized and my communication skills would probably get an A+.

Since your father was a principal and your mother was a teacher, I'm sure you know that finding a teaching job is quite hard, and if your plan goes through there will be even fewer of them to go around. Private schools aren't exactly scrambling for teachers, so what should I do?

I get it: we are too far in debt. The budget needs to be balanced, but is slashing publicly funded services really the way to do it? Obviously there's no way you could fire nurses or doctors (they save people!), and you can't fire police officers (they protect people!), so the next — and largest — group are the educators (they only teach people). I'm afraid, Mr. Hudak, that it is no accident that Ontario is recognized around the world as a leader in educational excellence.

I've read you want to cut 9,700 non-teaching positions in schools — on top of the 100,000 public sector jobs. These "non-teaching positions" include educational assistants, and if your mother ever worked with one, I'm sure she would agree that they are some of the hardest-working people in any school.

It's a disgrace to call them "non-teaching" as they work one-on-one with some of our most vulnerable students, teaching them things you'd never find in any curriculum: how to interact with other students, how to keep focused in a room of distractions or how to say hello, please and thank you in everyday conversations.

These are things that I would gladly work on with these students, but it is simply impossible to do so with twenty-something other students in the class. So when I read that you'd like to increase class sizes, I was disheartened. Surely you know that with local negotiations, some school boards allow up to 10 per cent of all classes in a school to be over the government-mandated limit. In some cases, that could mean classes of 33 students. Do parents really want another two students added to the mix?

And while we are talking about students: getting more students into the skilled trades is a great idea; I'll give you that. But should all students — regardless if they are university, college or apprenticeship bound — have to pay 30 per cent more in tuition? Your plan to cancel the 30 per cent off tuition grant, which saves students up to $1,780, surely can't be popular with the young voters. (Oops, I forgot that you don't want them to bother voting … we all know that young voters are more likely to favour liberal choices than older voters.)

I get it: the Liberals screwed up. The $1.1 billion wasted on those gas plants sure would have been better spent in health care or education or infrastructure. If I'm not mistaken though, you and your party wanted the gas plants to be cancelled as well. When asked if you'd scrap the Mississauga plant if you formed the next government, you replied — and I quote — "That's right. Done. Done, done, done." So I ask you, how would your government have dealt with the cost of the gas plant cancellation? Would the Ontario PC party foot the bill?

What I don't get: why eliminating 100,000 real jobs is part of your Million Jobs Plan. OK, I lied — I do know why you're eliminating my job (and 99,999 others) — you'd use the savings from our salaries to offset the revenue you'd be losing from lowering the corporate tax rate. In theory, lower taxes will bring more companies to Ontario, which would create more jobs … brilliant! However, unless those new companies are schools, I am out of luck.

You know who else would be out of luck? My wife, my puppy, and my soon-to-be-born son. We'd have to sell our new house. I'd be looking for a job as my wife is on maternity leave. We'd lose our way of life. You want to eliminate real jobs for hypothetical ones. I don't get it.

I look forward to your response. Please include a mailing address so I can forward you my resumé.

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Sincerely …

- A response to "An open letter to PC party leader Tim Hudak"