TORONTO - Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's decision to call the Toronto media together to once again offer the Ontario Liberals his unsolicited advice on what to include in Tuesday's provincial budget is nothing more than a "stunt," his provincial counterpart Dwight Duncan said Monday.

After hammering away at the Liberal government for weeks - warning that Ontario could become a have-not province and claiming that it's the "last place" in Canada that businesses want to invest in - Flaherty called a news conference Easter Monday - a government holiday - to speak about his ideas for the Ontario budget.

Flaherty's basic message has been the same: Ontario must cut corporate taxes if it hopes to help struggling manufacturers and protect the province's economy in the face of an economic slow down in the United States.

Premier Dalton McGuinty and Duncan have countered that direct investments to help manufacturers with loans and grants is a better course of action than tax cuts, especially for companies that aren't making any profits on which to pay taxes.

Tax cuts by Ontario's previous Conservative government - of which Flaherty held several cabinet posts including finance minister - led to closed schools and hospitals and a lack of water inspectors, Duncan warned Monday as he rejected Flaherty's advice.

"The people of Ontario rejected that approach on two occasions," Duncan said, referring to the Liberals two election wins over the Conservatives in 2003 and again in 2007.

"We listen to a lot of people, not just Mr. Flaherty."

A spokesman for McGuinty's office said Monday that it wouldn't matter what Flaherty had to say because the budget's contents were "locked in," something they assumed Flaherty was fully aware of before he scheduled the news conference.

NDP Leader Howard Hampton said Monday that both levels of government are using the blame game to avoid taking real action to stem the loss of almost 200,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs in the province in the past four years.

"The problem is this: Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Harper are worried, Mr. McGuinty says he's worried, (but) none of them are doing anything to address the issues," said Hampton.

"Harper blames McGuinty while McGuinty blames Harper, and neither of them have done anything to help sustain manufacturing jobs, to address issues like long-term care and the tough spot that municipalities are in. Neither of them do anything to address issues like poverty."

McGuinty sent an angry letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper accusing the federal Conservative government of "undermining" Ontario after Flaherty told a Halifax audience that Ontario was "the last place" in Canada that businesses would want to invest in because of high corporate tax rates.

McGuinty said last week he still had not received any response from Harper.

Once again Monday, Flaherty appeared to be acting in place of Ontario's Conservative Leader John Tory, who did not schedule a pre-budget media availability Monday but did agree to telephone interviews with journalists late in the day.

Flaherty recently denied that he was interested in running for Tory's job, a position he tried twice before to win. Still, his constant attacks against McGuinty have only fuelled speculation the federal minister may be interested in returning to his old stomping grounds at the Ontario legislature.

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