Made in Ontario Budget
| 3/26/2008 | Posted by Patti under Canadian Politics |
Provincial Finance Minister Dwight Duncan delivered his provincial budget yesterday. He ignored Flaherty’s unprecedented attempts to control the financial direction of this province from Ottawa and set a budget made in Ontario. If that budget serves Ontario well as the economy slows will be another matter.
While the NDP pronounce that not enough money was spent on propping up manufacturing jobs and helping the poor, the Conservative talking head Tory bewailed that there was too much money being spent and no relief for corporate taxes. Interestingly enough, a day or so ago I came across a report that a study had shown that tax cuts have a far greater benefit for the higher income earners in this country than the low income earners. Gee, wonder why the conservative types are after tax cuts for themselves and their corporate friends?
As for the NDP, their support base tends to be in manufacturing aka unions so it stands to reason they want to pander there. The fact is that manufacturing is getting tougher and tougher, those jobs are going to be fewer and farther between. The skills retraining programs that the government is wanting to introduce makes a whole lot more sense. The majority of manufacturing employees are unskilled labour, they make big money for boring work and when the bottom falls out, they have no transferable skills to fall back on.
It makes far more sense to support skills and apprenticeship training. Then the challenge is going to be finding jobs for those newly trainer workers to be able to apply for before they take their new skills received at the province’s expense to another province to apply them.
More money is going to be going into the medical system in the province including more money for staff at nursing homes. It wont necessarily provide enough staff to provide residents with the level of care that I’d want to see a parent receive but it will be an improvement. It will provide more than was had but more needs to be fought for. Our elders should not have to want for care in their final years.
While the province expects to be hiring 9,000 more nurses and giving some of them more responsibilities in providing health care, what I care about is seeing more doctors starting work in this province. When I want help from the medical system, I want the skills of a competent doctor, not being dependent on the semi-skills of a nurse. Nurses are highly skilled at their role but they are not doctors and that is what the province also needs more of.
Course, if I have to choose between some foreign trained doctor with barely recognizable English skills and a nurse with whom I can at least communicate with, there would be no contest in my mind. I know, picky aren’t I?
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