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Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said Friday he would get rid of 100,000 public sector jobs if he wins the June 12 election to reduce the size and cost of government and help create new private sector jobs, something Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne called “disastrous.”

Hudak said eliminating the $12.5-billion deficit by 2016 — one year ahead of the Liberals’ schedule — is the best way to convince businesses to invest and create new positions, which would clear the way for his plan to create one million new jobs over eight years.

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“If I have to trade off 100,000 jobs in the bureaucracy for one million new jobs in the private sector creating wealth, that’s a tradeoff I would do any second,” he told a town hall meeting in Barrie.

“It’s not easy, I take no joy in this, but it has to be done if we want job creators to put more people on the payroll in our province.”

Hudak said he can make a 10 per cent cut in the size of the public sector without affecting “vital” services performed by nurses, doctors and police, and save $2-billion a year.