Mr. McGuinty using incorrect facts

A sharp eyed friend of mine caught Mr. McGuinty spouting off some incorrect facts the other night on Global's "Focus Ontario", and asked if I'd post it. If Mr. McGuinty is getting easily verifiable facts wrong, can we trust his sources when it comes to other important facts?

What's the population of Pakistan Mr. McGuinty?

Last night Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty was a guest on Global TV's 'Focus Ontario' program with Sean Mallen. Mallen asked McGuinty whether he should at least consider having the conversation about faith-based schools in the future. McGunity's response was a flat out no and to support his stand he said:

"It's not going to happen on my watch and I'll tell you why, because we're up against 1.3 billion Chinese, 1.1 billion Indians, 280 million Pakistanis..."

280 million Pakistanis?? This guy doesn't even know the population of Pakistan (currently 164 million). I wonder if anyone here in the 75% Pakistani riding of Thorncliffe Park noticed that.

Just so no one turns around and says my friends figures are incorrect, according to the Government of Pakistan, their estimates say the current population is around 161,309,500... so 164 million is a heck of a lot closer than 280 million. (where on earth did he get that number from anyway?)

Just asking... is Mr. McGuinty just spouting out figures that make him sound intelligent? It might just help Mr. Tory out though... there are a whole lot of Pakisanis in Mr. Tory's riding. If somehow this is percieved as an insult in that community, it could help him secure his seat.

Here's Mr. McGuinty's full quote, and the link to the transcript:

SEAN MALLEN: Should we have the conversation [on faith based school funding] in the future though?

Dalton McGuinty: It’s not going to happen on my watch and I’ll tell you why, because we’re up against 1.3 billion Chinese, 1.1 billion Indians, 280 million Pakistanis, how many Brazilians and Russians and so on and so forth. They would love it Sean, if Ontario became mired in some kind of a constitutional debate that took our eyes off the education ball, where the adult population immersed itself in this controversial debate and argumentation, and instead stop worrying about what was going on inside our classrooms. I will not do that to our families and I will not do that to our kids.

SEAN MALLEN: Okay, that’s it for this segment. We’ll take a break and back again with one more segment with Dalton McGuinty.