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PCs

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last five weeks, you’ve surely heard of the Million Jobs Plan. The Conservatives put out a plan defining how many jobs would be created by each of the measures a PC government would take over the next eight years. For example, the Tories contend that cutting the corporate tax rate by 30 per cent would create almost 120,000 jobs, while reducing gridlock in the Toronto area would create 96,000. The baseline growth — also known as doing nothing — would create 523,200 jobs, according the PC platform. All in all, the Conservatives list a total of 11 measures that they say would create one million jobs. But there’s a but: it turns out that the PCs misread their own studies, making an elementary math error and counted the jobs that could be created many times over. Most economists agree the “million” jobs estimate is way off. And in addition to creating jobs, the Tories would cut 100,000 public service positions. It’s unclear where they would all come from, but they’ve committed to doing away with the Ontario Power Authority and say many, if not most, of the cuts will come from attrition.

New Democrats

Like the PCs, the New Democrats would scrap the “corporate welfare” jobs grants, and instead impose a “strings-attached” tax credit for employers to help hire new employees. The “Job Creation Tax Credit,” worth $250 million a year, would fund up to $5,000 of a new employee’s salary. The NDP claims this credit would help create up to 170,000 jobs, while critics of the plan argue that it would simply subsidize the salaries of folks who employers were going to hire anyway. The New Democrats would also cut the small business tax from 4.5 to three per cent by 2016, which would put $290 million into the pockets of small business owners, who would presumably use that money to hire people. They’re also proposing an investment tax credit for Ontario companies that invest in buildings, machinery, and equipment, as well as topping up a federal-provincial program that helps retrain unemployed older workers.