Queen's Park - After four days of rest and sightseeing, Dalton McGuinty is finally doing some work today on his $2 million taxpayer-funded South Asia trip and Progressive Conservative MPP Tim Hudak said there is still time to make it useful to Ontarians, not just the Ontario Liberal Party.

"This trip should be focused on helping Ontario's shrinking economy, not Dalton McGuinty's electoral chances," said Hudak. "Unfortunately there's little evidence Dalton McGuinty has his eye of the ball. He's brought along a massive taxpayer-funded Liberal entourage and spent the first four days of his trip sightseeing with that entourage."

Hudak made the comments on the first full work day of Dalton McGuinty's 17-day trip. PC Leader John Tory has repeatedly urged Dalton McGuinty, both publicly and privately, to respect taxpayers' money during what Tory hoped would be a valuable trip for Ontario.

"Instead of carefully spending public money, Dalton McGuinty is acting like taxpayers' money is the Liberal Partys money," said Hudak. "Seven Liberal MPPs travelling on this one trip is excessive and completely unnecessary. The Ontario Liberal Party should be paying for this royal entourage of staff and politicians because they're clearly along for political reasons."

The McGuinty entourage includes the Premier, Cabinet Ministers Sandra Pupatello and Harinder Takhar, and four backbench Liberal MPPs Vic Dhillon, Linda Jeffrey, Kuldip Kular and Shafiq Qaadri. There is also a huge complement of staff along for the trip but the McGuinty Liberals have not disclosed the exact number or whether the cost of the political entourage is included in the $2 million estimate for the trip.

"We hope all the backbenchers aren't exhausted from all the sightseeing and the entourage has enough energy left to get some work done. Dalton McGuinty has turned what could be a useful trip into a boondoggle for Liberal politicians hoping to get re-elected," said Hudak. "There's still time for him to prove to Ontarians he respects their money. He should tell his Liberal Party to foot the bill for this entourage, not ask taxpayers to once again pay for his largesse."

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For more information:

Tim Hudak, MPP