Austerity in Ontario

Now that the much anticipated report is out on how Ontario can climb out of a $16 billion deficit in six years, the work begins examining the massive document and its 362 recommendations.

As Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci previously told Northern Life, it was former TD TD bank economist Don Drummond's job to provide advice, it will be up to the province to decide how to act on that advice. Just because it is in the report, does not mean it will be adopted.

However, Drummond has said his recommendations can only bring the promised return if all of it is enacted.

“None of these choices will be easy, and many of our proposals will draw vigorous criticism,” Drummond wrote in the report.

“But it must be kept in mind that our recommendations can deliver the needed degree of spending restraint to balance the budget by 2017-18, only if they are all implemented.”

The report's 362 recommendations call for cuts to a variety of programs, including health care and education.

Northern Life has lined up a number of people to speak to various aspects of the report, including one of its commissions, Laurentian University president Dominic Giroux and Mayor Marianne Matichuk.

Look to Northern Life today for more coverage of this important story.

Report's highlights:

-Cap growth of health-care spending at 2.5 per cent each year to 2017-18.
-Increase the use of home-based care.
-Make the portion of pharmaceutical costs paid for by seniors rise more sharply as income increases.
-No increase in total compensation for Ontario's doctors, the best paid in the country.
-Consider expanding health coverage to include pharmaceuticals, long-term care and aspects of mental health care.
-Cap growth in primary and secondary education spending at one per cent each year to 2017-18.
-Cap growth in post-secondary education spending (excluding training) at 1.5 per cent each year to 2017-18.
-Put "strong pressure" on the federal government to fund on-reserve First Nations education equal to per-student provincial funding for elementary and secondary education. Failing that, the province itself should step up to provide that funding.
-Cancel the full-day kindergarten program, or delay full implementation from 2014-15 to 2017-18.
-Increase the average class size from 22 to 24 in Grades 9 to 12 and from 24.5 to 26 in Grades 4 to 8.
-Set the cap in class size at 23 in primary grades and eliminate the other requirement that 90 per cent of classes must be 20 or fewer.
-Reject further employer rate increases to the Teachers' Pension Plan beyond the current rate.
-Maintain the existing tuition framework, which allows annual tuition increases of five per cent and consider eliminating a newly minted 30-per-cent tuition rebate.
-Cap growth in social services spending at 0.5 per cent each year to 2017-18.
-Decrease program spending in all other areas by 2.4 per cent each year to 2017-18.
-Higher water bills to recover the full cost of water and wastewater services.
-Begin charging for parking at GO Transit parking lots.
-Eliminate the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit "as quickly as possible."
-Consider having security providers take over police officers' "non-core" duties.
-Negotiate the transfer of responsibility for incarceration for sentences longer than six months to the federal government, up from the current two years.
-Close one of the two casinos in Niagara Falls and one of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation's two head offices.
-Use licence and registration suspensions as a tool to help collect some Provincial Offences Act fines, allow fines to be added to the offender's property tax bill and offset tax refunds against such unpaid fines.

To read the report, visit http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/reformcommission/index.html.

Posted by Mark Gentili