OTTAWA—Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak is ramping up his attack on the Liberals’ scheme to give employers a $10,000 tax credit for hiring recent immigrants, whom he derides as “foreign workers.”

In face of criticism that his rhetoric borders on racism, Hudak took to the national airwaves Wednesday to say that new immigrants shouldn’t be getting a special deal when so many Ontarians are out of work.

“Under their program somebody could just arrive in Ontario and they get a $10,000, basically a grant, to get a job in our province. Right now we have 500,000 women and men who are unemployed pounding the pavement everyday … searching for a job,” he told the CBC’s Power & Politics.

His message was just as blunt on CTV’s Power Play.

Hudak has been quick to seize upon the Liberal promise to give employers a $10,000 tax credit for employing recent immigrants and has not missed the opportunity to call them “foreign workers.”

His stepped up attack falls on the heels of a Tory ad posted on YouTube that spells out the party’s opposition in no uncertain terms.

Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty took another swat at Hudak on Wednesday for opposing the policy.

“What concerns me is that Mr. Hudak — while he was in his heart of hearts absolutely committed to the same kind of policy which he gave expression to by means of his own private member’s bill just about a year ago — has now done a complete reversal, jettisoned his principles, abandoned his values in an effort to play some kind of small politics,” McGuinty told reporters after a campaign rally in Mississauga.

Hudak reminded his critics it was the Liberals who introduced the “divisive” policy, not him.

“It is Dalton McGuinty that has made this choice. It is a high divisive policy that Dalton McGuinty plans to bring in that pits one set of Canadians against new arrivals. I think it runs against the value of Canadians,” he told CBC.

“What makes Ontario strong is that we have equal treatment in our province,” he said.

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With files from Rob Ferguson