Provincial budget only the beginning

The provincial budget was delivered last Thursday afternoon but rather than doing so on the floor of the Legislature, it was done so from the floor of an auto-parts plant to a hand-picked audience in a Hollywood-style TV production.
Although Premier Ernie Eves is upset the budget platform has be overshadowed by the manner in which it was presented, and blames the media for that, the fact remains the budget is a precursor to an upcoming provincial election.
“The Conservatives wanted it to be their election campaign document,” said NDP leader and Kenora-Rainy River MPP Howard Hampton. “They wanted it to be the election kickoff.
“Lots of ‘Lights, Camera, Action,’ but it didn’t work,” he charged. “They were all set to call the election. That didn’t work. Now we have this SARS crisis so I think the election call is probably off.”
But even if the election call is a month or several more off, all three parties are in unofficial campaign mode.
Eves’ fifth-consecutive balanced budget was heavy on tax cuts—to the tune of $5 billion—and emphasized new money for education and health care as well as a property tax cut for seniors.
Local PC candidate Cathe Hoszowski believes it is a good budget—and good precursor to an election.
“As a small business owner, we’re pleased with the tax cuts,” said Hoszowski, who owns a lodge on Lake Despair with her husband. “It seems to me that this party and government have done a good job to stimulate the economy.”
She said the commitment by the government to education (an additional $500 million) and health care (an additional $1.9 billion) is the key to survival in the north, as well.
“What people have been saying is diversity of the economy is the key,” she said. “Health care and education are a big part of that. It helps set the stage for outside investment.”
But Hampton said the Tories could be doing more in both areas.
“They’re using money that was from the federal government for health care and using it to finance tax cuts for the wealthy,” he said. “This is completely wrong.”
Hampton also suggested the $500 million boost in education funding is too little when compared to the $2-billion the Rozanski report said the province needed to reinvest in education.
“The money promised falls short,” Hampton concluded.
Both the provincial Liberals and NDP are advocating the complete implementation of recommendations made by the Rozanski report.
“We’ve asked that the government put a freeze on all school closures,” said Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty, adding this was one of the Rozanski recommendations.
“They’re closing not because it serves the interest of students but because they’re having to comply with a one-size-fits-all funding authority,” he argued.
“When closing a school in southern Ontario, the next school might be a 10-minute walk away. In the north, it might be an hour bus ride,” he noted.
McGuinty added schools in rural areas like Northwestern Ontario also serve as a “hub” of the community and “serve a pivotal role” by providing a location for service groups, sports clubs, and Boy Scout troops to meet.
“Some of our very best learning happens in smaller rural schools,” said McGuinty, adding studies have shown there is less tardiness and more academic achievement with an atmosphere of familiarity with teachers and a greater sense of school spirit.
As part of the Liberal response to the budget, the party released its northern policy platform this week. In it, the Liberals are calling for a Northern Youth Opportunity Initiative aimed at retaining the youth in northern communities to help secure the future.
“There are a lot of kids in the north with great ideas,” McGuinty said, adding they seem to think they need to go south to realize their potential.
“We’ll help them secure loans for those ideas [to keep them in the north],” he pledged.
The Liberal platform also calls for a change in Northern Heritage Fund and the way money is distributed from it. McGuinty believes it needs to return to its original mandate of providing loans/grants for private-sector job creation.
“Too often it is used as a top-up for funding cuts [in other areas],” he remarked. “There is a lot of talent in the north and we want to showcase that talent.”
“What was to be a fund to co-invest in new opportunities has turned into a pre-election slush fund,” charged Hampton.
The Liberal northern election platform is strikingly similar to the NDP document released several weeks ago, said Hampton. “I think the Liberals borrowed from our northern platform,” he remarked. “We’re used to that.”
Two key areas the platforms do differ, though, are on grow bonds and the privatization of hydro.
“There’s no mention of stopping hydro privatization or deregulation,” Hampton of the Liberal platform.
He added that in last week’s budget, the Tories announced the selling of assets for a $2-billion gain. He has an idea where that will come from.
“If they get re-elected, Hydro One will be back for sale,” Hampton said, adding the Conservative plan is to sell off rivers and streams with hydro potential.
“This is bad news for Northern Ontario.”
Hampton also noted the Liberals had no policy regarding negotiations on softwood lumber taking place in Washington, D.C. between the U.S. and the “Liberals in Ottawa” and “Tories in Toronto.”
He suggested this was a failure on the Liberals’ part considering the impact and importance of those industries on Northwestern Ontario.
In the Liberal platform, specific mention of the Grow Bonds North initiative being spearheaded by the Northern Ontario Association of Chambers of Commerce was made.
“They’ve endorsed grow bonds,” said NOACC president Tannis Drysdale of Fort Frances. “We believe it will be in all three platforms. It is such a widely-endorsed plan.”
Drysdale explained people and organizations of all stripes have shown their support for the Grow Bonds North plan—including provincial Cabinet ministers.
“It takes it off the table as an election issue,” she noted, adding the support means that no matter who ultimately wins the election, there will be support for the initiative.
“We got that idea from NOACC,” said McGuinty. “We just think it’s a great project. It enables a community to invest in itself.”
“It should have been done yesterday, as far as I’m concerned,” agreed Hoszowski, adding she looks at things through her northern eyes. “I have written the premier and the finance minister to that fact.
“Right now [as a candidate and not elected MPP], I don’t have as much influence yet.”
However, the breadth of support for the program doesn’t reach as far as Drysdale may have hoped. “The grow bond concept is something we’re looking at but it is limited in what it can do,” said Hampton.
“We have a sitting MPP member that should have taken [grow bonds] forward,” retorted Hoszowski. “A good MPP should be meeting with those championing it to work out the wrinkles.”
The Liberal and NDP platforms also have significantly different approaches to paying for the cost of their platforms.
“The Tories are cutting taxes by $5 billion,” said McGuinty. “And in addition to that will implement Rozanski, hire nurses, water inspectors. . . . Eves is making promises he simply can’t keep.”
The Liberals propose paying for their platform, if elected, by not implementing a $2.2-billion corporate tax cut proposed by the Conservatives, by taking back the $500 million in private school transfers, saving $50 million by not running partisan TV ads, and by collecting roughly $400 million in uncollected corporate taxes and saving another $400 million wasted money on private consultations according to the provincial auditor.
McGuinty claims this $3.5 billion will be used to pay for education and other investments outlined in the plan.
Health care will see an additional $3.4 billion—$2.7 billion of which would come from federal transfer payments and another $700 million from cigarette taxes by bringing the tax up to the national average.
“I’d be concerned with the deletion of tax cuts,” Hoszowski said of the Liberal plan. “[The Liberal platform] is a little thin on costs.”
The NDP also would see less in the way of tax cuts—and even tax increases—as to implement their plans on health care, education, safe drinking water, and economic diversity.
“We’d implement two additional income tax brackets,” said Hampton, explaining that individuals over $100,000 and those earning over $150,000 would see three percent and 4.5 percent increases in income tax.
“Just by implementing that, we would generate $1.5 billion,” he said. “We’d put that into the public schools [in the form of a Education Excellence Fund].
“Our future prosperity and well-being hinges on how well-educated our young people are,” he stressed.