spending

Friday February 8, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 8, 2019

Ford government autism program overhaul met with outrage by some parents who fear kids will lose out

The Ford government’s plan to overhaul Ontario’s autism program has sparked anger among parents — including a PC political staffer and father of two autistic teens who quit in disgust over the changes Wednesday.

January 25, 2019

Under the revamp, aimed at clearing a therapy wait list of 23,000 kids, parents will be given funding and the power to choose the services they want. But families will face a lifetime limit of $140,000 per child and high-earners will no longer be eligible.

Parents, who say funding should be based on need and not on age or arbitrary cut-offs, were devastated by the move.

“In light of today’s announcement, I told my minister I did not feel I could continue in my role as legislative assistant,” said Bruce McIntosh, who joined Progressive Conservative MPP Amy Fee’s political staff when the Ford government was elected last spring.

McIntosh is the former president of the Ontario Autism Coalition, a parent advocacy group that has pushed for more government support but has been critical of age-based funding.

November 17, 2018

Fee (Kitchener South—Hespeler) is parliamentary assistant for Lisa MacLeod, minister of children, community and social services, who announced the autism overhaul at Toronto’s Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital.

Fee, the mother of two children with autism, spoke about her own family’s experiences during the news conference.

An estimated 40,000 children in Ontario have autism, a developmental disorder characterized by difficulties with social interaction and communication. About 2,400 of them are waiting for a diagnosis, 23,000 are on a wait list for behavioural therapies and just 8,400 are receiving services.

MacLeod said the government will double funding for diagnostic hubs to $5.5 million a year for the next two years, clear the therapy wait lists and ensure families get their funding within the next 18 months.

The program under the previous Liberal government was inefficient and did not address children’s needs, she said. (Source: Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Thursday November 22, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 22, 2018

Fiscal update to lay out competitiveness plan, close loop on some Liberal vows

The federal government will release a fall economic update Wednesday that will seek to close the loop on some of its outstanding mandate commitments, leaving the door open for the Liberals to use next year’s budget as their 2019 election platform.

March, 1, 2018

The document will also include Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s long-awaited plan to help Canada compete for investment dollars, which many warn has become increasingly difficult following major tax and regulatory changes in the United States.

Morneau has faced pressure to lower Canada’s corporate rate, but the government has signalled it will focus on targeted measures to accelerate investment rather than across-the-board tax cuts.

The document will likely be the Liberal government’s second-last opportunity — besides the spring budget — to deliver major policy announcements and its political pitch in package form before the October 2019 election.

February 12, 2016

As for fiscal responsibility, the official said the fall statement will show that Canada’s annual projections for the federal deficit and the debt burden will continue to slide downward on trajectories similar to those outlined in the 2018 budget.

The Liberals have faced regular criticism from the Opposition Conservatives for abandoning their 2015 vow to run only modest annual shortfalls of no more than $10 billion and to eliminate the deficit by 2019.

Instead, the Liberals have posted deficits of more than $18 billion in each of the last two years.

As its guiding principle on fiscal responsibility, the government has focused on lowering the country’s debt burden — as measured by net debt-to-GDP — rather than balancing the books.

The debt-to-GDP ratio fell to 31.3 per cent in 2017-18 from 32 per cent in 2016-17. The government has predicted the ratio to fall to 30.1 per cent in 2018-19 and continue sliding each year until it reaches 28.4 per cent in 2022-23. (Source: CTV News) 

 

Thursday May 31, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 31, 2018

All three parties spending like drunks

During the last televised leaders’ debate, 19-year-old Martin Badger, a first-time voter from Burlington, posed an audience question to the three party leaders that’s probably troubling other Ontario voters.

May 16, 2018

How do you plan to pay for the additional services that you’re promising? Badger asked.

Unless you’re dipped, dyed and butt-branded in party colours, the answers weren’t exactly comforting. The reality is they’re all spending like old-time drunken sailors, tossing free programs and tax cuts around as if the election is an extended shore leave binge.

NDP leader Andrea Horwath kicked off by acknowledging that people across the province, including herself, are concerned about the accumulated debt, now pegged at about $325 billion and rising.

May 15, 2018

To help pay for her promises, which include drug coverage for everyone, lower electricity rates, hiring 4,500 new nurses and getting rid of “hallway medicine,” Horwath said she’s “going to ask” the richest people and corporations to pay a “little more” in taxes.

What Horwath didn’t specifically mention is she also plans to borrow $25 billion to pay for these and other elections promises. Oh, yes, and then she’ll balance the books and stop deficit spending. Once that’s done, Horwath previously told The Spectator, the New Democrats “will take any surpluses … and apply them to the debt.”

For his part, Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford basically repeated what he’s been saying before the campaign began. He intends to pay for his promises by finding four cents of savings on every dollar spent by the province and by bringing in outside auditors to find more “efficiencies.”

That’s a tall order, particularly since the platform-free Ford is promising to cut hydro rates, lower gas prices and taxes, create 15,000 new long-term care beds and invest almost $2 billion in various health and housing services, which, of course, means less revenue and more expenses. He also intends to run a deficit for at least the first year.

Liberal promises include more money for hospitals, more free tuition for post-secondary students, free preschool child care, and free prescription drugs for children, young adults and seniors. In total, it amounts to more than $20 billion of new deficit spending. Still, in a woebegone gesture to fiscal responsibility, Wynne also promises to introduce legislation directing budget surpluses be used to pay down the $325 billion debt. (Continued: Andrew Dreschel, Hamilton Spectator) 

 

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Wednesday May 16, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 16, 2018

Ontario election: NDP overtakes Liberals as the ‘Anti-Ford’ party, according to Ipsos poll

NDP’s Andrea Horwath is jumping ahead of Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals one week into the 2018 Ontario Election.

According to an Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News, the NDP is gaining ground with 35 per cent of respondents saying they would vote for Horwath’s party – that’s up six points from last week’s polling. The Liberals would only garner 22 per cent, down four per cent from last week.

But Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservatives are still ahead, with 40 per cent of respondents saying they would vote PC if an election were held tomorrow. That number is unchanged from last week.

Only three per cent say they would vote for other parties (including the Green Party).

“Normally you would expect the NDP not to be a factor in that the fight would be between the Liberals and the Conservatives,” pollster Darrel Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, explained. (Source: Global News) 

 

Friday April 6, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 6, 2018

Federal infrastructure plan behind schedule: PBO

The Parliamentary Budget Officer says federal infrastructure spending created up to 11,000 new jobs over the past year and added 0.1 per cent to Canada’s GDP, falling short of Liberal government projections as the program falls behind schedule.

Parliamentary Budget Officer Jean-Denis Fréchette also cautions that rising interest rates are starting to offset the positive economic effects of infrastructure spending.

The PBO released a report Thursday that examines the impact of what the Liberal government calls its first phase of infrastructure spending. The plan was announced in the 2016 budget and initially promised about $12-billion over five years for projects that are primarily focused on repairs of existing assets. The PBO report looks at how spending from that budget – and top-ups announced in the 2016 fall update – will be spread over nine years, bringing the total to $14.4-billion.

In an interview, Mr. Fréchette said the amount of economic stimulus and employment created from the first phase of spending is relatively modest when compared with the promises made by the Liberals.

Thursday’s PBO report said phase 1 infrastructure spending added 0.1 per cent to Canada’s GDP in the 2016-17 fiscal year and 0.1 per cent in the fiscal year that ends March 31.

The 2016 budget included estimates from the Department of Finance that the announced infrastructure spending would boost Canada’s GDP by 0.2 per cent in the first year and 0.4 per cent in the second year.

That hasn’t happened, Mr. Fréchette notes. (Source: Globe & Mail)