Tim Hudak says he's got a plan to create one million jobs over eight years.

On the heels of Ontario losing 39,000 jobs last month, the Progressive Conservative leader will provide details Monday about his private member's bill and how his party plans to go about it.

"Our unemployment rate has peaked the national average for 84 consecutive months. That's seven years," Hudak, the party leader for more than four years, says in an op-ed piece in Monday's Star.

"It's time for my Million Jobs Act," states Hudak, formerly a minister in the Mike Harris and Ernie Eves Tory governments.

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak's private member's bill to boost jobs in Ontario by one million over eight years includes a call for an end to subsidies of wind and solar power projects. zoom

Hudak is to introduce his bill when the legislature resumes sitting on Feb. 18.

According to Statistics Canada, Ontario's employment fell by 39,000 jobs in December, pushing the unemployment rate up 0.7 percentage points to 7.9 per cent, compared to 6.5 per cent in September 2008. Last month 588,500 Ontarians were out of work.

The Tories' road map to more jobs is contained in a five-point plan:

Reduce debt and taxes to encourage employers to hire and to signal to Ontarians they will keep more of their money.

Encourage more young people to train for skilled trades such as electrician, plumber, machinist, millwright and so on.

Increase trade with other provinces, including Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, through new interprovincial free trade agreements.

Make better use of federal immigration programs that match immigrants to jobs.

Reduce regulatory red tape by one-third over three years.

The Tories have isolated these goals as being the triggers to jump-start employment and "create jobs immediately in the province of Ontario," a party official told the Star.

"Ontario has been waiting too long for our government to table its promised jobs plan," Hudak says.

The Tories say that since the recession of 2008, in the manufacturing sector alone, some 300,000 good-paying jobs have been lost for a variety of reasons, ranging from high electricity prices to a so-called unfriendly business climate.

The Liberal government insists manufacturing is coming back with more than 700,000 people working in that sector and that, overall, the province has recovered 164 per cent of the jobs lost during the recession.

Notably absent from Hudak's multi-year employment plan is any reference to watering down unions by scrapping mandatory dues check-offs, which is the hallmark of right-to-work jurisdictions in the U.S.

The opposition Progressive Conservatives agreed during the fall session to work with the Liberal government to "clear the decks" of proposed pieces of legislation that had been hanging around for some time in order to devote the next session to job creation.

"Without an integrated plan to expand our economy and balance the budget . . . Ontario will face higher deficits and will be struggling even more to cover the cost of essential public services," Hudak stated.

The Tories say that, if elected, they would save $2 billion by freezing public sector wages across the board. In an earlier announcement, they said they would find even more savings by slashing 10,000 jobs in the education sector.

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Hudak's private's member's bill also calls for an end to "expensive subsidies" for the wind and solar power projects that are going to cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

"The reason why Ontario is hemorrhaging jobs . . . is because of things like expensive subsidies for wind and solar electricity, something the plan would correct. If you look at a lot of those jobs that were lost last month, Kellogg (in London), Heinz (in Leamington) . . . this plan would make Ontario energy affordable again by ending that program," a Hudak adviser told the Star.

Once he unveils his plan, Hudak is expected to hit the road to sell it to "every corner of the province to make sure that people out there know that the Ontario PC Party is putting these plans forward to be on the side of the people without work, people who are worried they are going to lose their work."