TORONTO - Tempers flared and partisan bickering drowned out debate as the Ontario legislature returned from its summer break Monday, with a feisty Premier Dalton McGuinty accusing the opposition of having a hidden agenda.
The Conservatives and NDP went on the attack during the first question period of the session, accusing the Liberals of making life unaffordable with energy polices that drive up hydro bills and an HST that added eight per cent to gasoline and home heating bills.
McGuinty, who usually shrugs off such criticism, reminded voters that the previous Conservative government of Mike Harris closed hospitals and fired nurses -- and that current Tory Leader Tim Hudak was in the Harris cabinet.
"So when this gentleman gets up and talks about health care, Ontario families better ask themselves what's their secret agenda when it comes to health care," McGuinty said in the legislature.
"What's going to happen to their hospitals, their nurses and their doctors?"
Recent polls suggest more voters actually think it's McGuinty who has a hidden agenda, rather than Hudak, which could be one of the reasons behind the premier's blunt attack on the Tory leader.
Outside the legislature, McGuinty said he wants voters to see the clear difference between his Liberals and Hudak's Tories.
"They see the Ontario family as being exclusively concerned with income, revenues and expenses, and those are real issues for Ontario families," said McGuinty.
"(But) we're also concerned about the quality of education and health care. We will not take our eye off the other concerns families have."
McGuinty also lashed out at the New Democrats after the third party leader accused him of driving up the cost of living for Ontario families and ignoring their concerns.
Speaker Steve Peters had to force McGuinty to retract his words when the premier suggested NDP Leader Andrea Horwath was not being completely truthful in her attacks on Liberal policies.
Outside the legislature, the opposition leaders said they weren't surprised to see McGuinty being so defensive.
"If anybody is trying to hide things from the public it's Dalton McGuinty, when he brought forward that change in the laws around the G20 summit, tried to sneak in that eco-tax grab behind the HST," said Hudak.
"Sadly, this government in its last year in office has become increasingly sneaky in the way they deal with the public."
The New Democrats said McGuinty and the Liberals have become increasingly out of touch with the economic realities of ordinary people in Ontario.
"I think the premier was feeling a little bit pinched by some of the comments we made," said Horwath.
"The bottom line is he has to account for the decisions he's made over the summer and he has to face up to the reality that people are hurting in this province."
With an election just over a year away, McGuinty's tactics have changed from simply explaining what the Liberals are doing to heavily criticizing the opposition parties, although Finance Minister Dwight Duncan denied it was a new strategy from the government.
"We're just going to start letting people know what they don't know about Hudak, and that he doesn't get families, remind them they closed 28 hospitals, remind them about Ipperwash, remind them about Walkerton," said Duncan.
"As I said on Facebook this morning, bring it on."
There was one indication Monday that some Liberal backbenchers might not be happy about being passed over in a recent cabinet shuffle, when McGuinty promoted two relatively new members who won byelections.
A full one-quarter of the Liberal caucus, 18 members, failed to show for the first day of the fall session, something McGuinty brushed off.
"All I noticed there today was there was no shortage of enthusiasm and commitment and energy and I think we had to be restrained a few times -- myself included -- by the Speaker."
