LIBERALS BOLSTER LAW-AND-ORDER RECORD WITH $6M BOOST TO GUNS-AND-GANGS UNIT

With a tough election campaign looming, the Liberals moved Wednesday
to bolster their law-and-order record with a $6.3-million expansion
of the anti-guns and gangs program into Ontario cities outside Toronto.

Premier Dalton McGuinty made the announcement in Hamilton, the kind
of Ontario city political observers say the Liberals need to win back
if they are to be returned to government.

The extra cash will help tackle crime on the streets of cities like
Hamilton, Ottawa, Thunder Bay, London and Waterloo, McGuinty said.
The money is part of about $12 million in funding to fight drugs in
Ontario, targeting methamphetamine labs and marijuana grow operations.

"If young people make the wrong choices - if they pick up a gun, if
they join a gang - then we'll be there with the full force of the
law," McGuinty told a room full of police officers and regional
chiefs at police headquarters in Hamilton.

"We all have more work to do. That's why we're giving our police
services more resources to continue the fight against gun crimes."

The extra cash to fight crime comes as the unofficial election
campaign kicks off with the adjournment of the legislature, and polls
show the Liberals and Conservatives running neck and neck.

Henry Jacek, political science professor at McMaster University, said
these kinds of announcements are designed to win back decaying
Liberal support in urban areas before the Oct. 10 vote.

The Liberals have lost much of their support from strategic voters in
cities like Hamilton, London and Windsor, Jacek said.

"It has started to take the core cities for granted," he said.
"That's where the NDP live. That's why you see McGuinty coming to
Hamilton and other core cities trying to reverse this trend. All the
surveys show we're in for a tight race."

Conservatives say the last-minute wooing of city dwellers with
law-and-order announcements won't work because the Liberals have had
four years to fight crime and have done little to attack the growing
problem of guns and gangs.

The anti-guns and gangs program had a trial run in Toronto, and is
now being expanded to communities in the Golden Horseshoe, Essex
County, Durham, Kenora, London, Ottawa, Peel Region, Thunder Bay,
Waterloo and York Region.