Reaction mixed on local benefits of provincial budget

The provincial budget unveiled last week by Finance minister Dwight Duncan is drawing mixed reaction from provincial leaders and local sectors concerning the budget’s benefit to Rainy River District.
The McGuinty government touted the budget as one that makes major new investments in skills, infrastructure, and innovation to encourage economic growth and job creation.
“This budget is about ensuring that all Ontarians have the opportunities and skills to succeed, so that they are working in jobs that will strengthen Ontario’s economy,” Duncan said in a press release.
The local campus of Confederation College, for one, is pleased with the budget.
“The focus on skills training will ensure that we are able to continue to meet the training and educational needs of the community,” noted campus director Anne Renaud.
She said the three-year, $1.5-billion Skills to Action Job Plan includes two areas that likely will directly improve the educational and training opportunities for district residents.
The first is $355 million over three years for a Second Career Strategy that will help 20,000 unemployed workers make the transition to new careers and well-paying jobs in growing areas of the economy.
“This means that more funding will be available for post-secondary education for laid-off workers, which could directly impact district residents that are interested in re-training,” Renaud remarked.
The second area that might impact district residents is $75 million over the next three years to expand apprenticeship training.
“[Our campus] has been offering a wide variety of pre-apprenticeship training opportunities in the past few years, including electrician, carpentry, multi-skilling, and cook,” Renaud noted.
“This additional funding means that we will be able to continue to offer these programs, and expand on these offerings, based on community need.”
In the next few months, she said, the local campus will be holding focus groups, specifically for the skilled trades and health-care sectors, to allow employers to help them identify the areas of training and education they should be concentrating on now and in the next three-five years.
“The support of the community, organizations, and employers has been key in allowing us to secure funding for a diversity of programs,” Renaud stressed.
Meanwhile, the Northwestern Ontario Associated Chambers of Commerce also sees good news for the region in the provincial budget, particularly due to the acceleration of the reduction for business education tax for Northern Ontario businesses.
“Approximately 30,000 businesses in 85 municipalities in Northern Ontario will share savings of more than $70 million as the Business Education Tax [BET] rate is reduced,” Mary Long-Irwin, NOACC’s chief operating officer, said in a press release issued last week.
“This has been an issue for us as we were unfairly charged a higher rate here in the north,” she noted.
The budget also contained some of the recommendations outlined in the recently-released Rosehart Report.
“I was pleased to see the mining sector addressed with an investment of $20 million for geological mapping and a further $7 million to implement the Ontario Mineral Development Strategy,” said NOACC president Barry Streib.
“I believe mining in Northwestern Ontario will contribute to the growth of our economy within our communities and to that end, NOACC will host its first mining summit later this year,” he added.
As well, NOACC feels the budget continues to address the challenges facing the forestry sector by reducing the stumpage rate for poplar hardwood to encourage new investments and support current producers.
“These strategies will help to put Northern Ontario on more solid footing, and we hope will pave the way for a more aggressive strategy down the road to assist the sectors hardest hit by the economic slowdown south of the border,” Long-Irwin said.
While Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton acknowledged a few of the positive aspects of the budget, the local MPP stressed it isn’t enough.
“In my view, the real test that this budget had to pass was it had to provide a blueprint for maintaining and sustaining manufacturing jobs in Ontario,” said Hampton.
“Once you get outside of Toronto, the heart and soul of the Ontario economy is manufacturing,” he stressed, adding it’s all about forest products manufacturing in the north.
“We’ve lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs in the last three years and virtually every corner of the province has been touched,” Hampton noted.
“There’s no blueprint here. There’s no plan that’s going to keep manufacturers in the province,” he charged.
The provincial NDP recently introduced legislation referred to as “Buy Ontario” to protect manufacturing jobs in the province, but Hampton said the McGuinty government didn’t seem interested in it.
And he said the re-training package—lauded by the local campus of Confederation College—is not going to be much help.
“It would allow 20,000 workers to go back to school. What do you do with the other 180,000 who have lost their jobs?” Hampton asked. “Are they supposed to get on an airplane and fly out to Fort McMurray or Saskatoon?
“That’s the question the budget doesn’t answer.”
Hampton admitted some of the tax changes, like eliminating the capital tax, will help companies like AbitibiBowater and Ainsworth in 2008.
“It will give them a little more cash in the current year,” he indicated. “But we need a strategy for the next three years to keep companies alive and keep workers employed.”
As well, Hampton agreed the small change in stumpage fees—a change which he’s advocated—should also help Ainsworth in Barwick.
“It’s not the silver bullet, but it should help them out a little bit,” he remarked.
But Hampton noted two ministries important for Northwestern Ontario—the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ministry of Tourism—both took cuts in last week’s budget.
“The Ministry of Natural Resources takes another $20-million budget cut, which is not good,” said Hampton. “The MNR doesn’t have the staff or resources to adequately do the job now, never mind take another budget cut.
“And at a time when we need to be doing something serious about tourism, the Ministry of Tourism is going to take another $65-million budget cut,” he added.
Meanwhile, Hampton said the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs—now a full ministry—didn’t have the sort of budget he would have liked to see.
“We have some issues and challenges we need to address in terms of First Nations’ communities and it should have a front-line ministry budget,” he argued.
“There was an increase in the budget, but it’s still a minuscule operation. It’s the lowest budgeted ministry in the government.”
At the end of the day, Hampton believes this budget means we’re going to continue to see manufacturing jobs lost.
“And that means a tough year ahead for most people in the province,” he warned. “You’re going to see the Ontario economy really slow down.
Our area, I think, will be okay,” he added. “The paper mill will continue to run and the OSB mill in Barwick, while faced with some tough challenges, I think will continue to operate.
“But I don’t think there’s anything in this budget that will open sawmills . . . or anything that will take on the huge loss of jobs that we’ve seen in Thunder Bay,” he remarked.