Skip to content

Northern impact

A maintained FedNor and an incentive program for doctors and nurses practicing in rural and remote areas are some of the treats the federal budget offered Northwestern Ontario.
138003_634364201755181865
FILE -- Conservative MP Greg Rickfor (Kenora). (tbnewswatch.com)
A maintained FedNor and an incentive program for doctors and nurses practicing in rural and remote areas are some of the treats the federal budget offered Northwestern Ontario.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty made the 2011-2012 federal budget official in Ottawa Tuesday. Among new programs in the budget was an initiative designed to attract health-care workers to rural and remote communities by forgiving as much as $40,000 in student loans for doctors and $20,000 for nurses.

It’s an initiative that could help communities that are now struggling to find physicians, said MP Greg Rickford (Con., Kenora).

“This was targeted directly to doctors and nurses who were a year out from their program,” he said Tuesday evening. “This (program provides incentives) to both doctors and nurses to work in these rural communities.”

FedNor was another Northern Ontario specific budget highlight.

The Kenora MP said he was pleased to learn the Northern Ontario regional development program was receiving the same investment from the 2011-2012 federal budget as it did from the 2010-2011 budget.  

The maintained FedNor budget does not include the $4 million investment to the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute announced a day earlier. The money from that investment will be above and beyond the programs regular budget.  

“It was a significant program and the consensus was that although FedNor was the appropriate program to fund it under, we didn't ’ant to do it at the expense of any other (FedNor) investments,” he said.

But another area MP isn’t looking at the budget with the same enthusiasm.

MP Bruce Hyer (NDP, Thunder Bay – Superior North) said his first impression of the federal budget was that it was missing a lot. Hyer had hopes that the budget would force HST off of home heating bills, have a plan to eliminate senior poverty and would include thousands of new doctors and nurses across the country, among other items.

But from Hyer’s perspective, those kinds of initiatives seemed to be either missing or insignificant.

“There is no single-line item in the budget that, by itself, is enough to decide what to do. It’s the whole package” he said.

As for FedNor, Hyer said he couldn’t find the maintained investment Rickford spoke of. However, the MP did notice cuts of about $6 million to Industry Canada, which is the agency that is home to the FedNor program.

Other regional development programs appeared to be facing similar cuts, the MP added.

“Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, this one’s a whopper, it is going to be cut over $80 million,” he said.  “This is the one that retrains laid off workers, like our forestry workers in Northwestern Ontario.”

But it’s a budget that the business community would likely want to see pass a confidence vote, said Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce president Harold Wilson.

Wilson said he believed the business community would appreciate the government’s plan to battle its deficit. According to the budget, the Conservative government is projecting a $29.6 billion deficit with balanced books arriving by 2015-2016. That news, combined with small business rebates and an extended energy rebate, makes the Chamber president hopeful that the budget will be passed.

“Locally, there has been a lot of really positive economic news about how we’ve been doing,” he said, adding that the country’s economy appears to be doing well on the global stage. “I think this is a budget we would like to see passed.”

Other budget highlights, according to the Canadian Press, include:

· Total spending of $278.7 billion (includes $33 billion in debt payments), up one per cent from 2010-11.
· Total debt of $586 billion, up $29.6 billion from 2010-11.
· Projected deficit of $29.6 billion, with plans to balance the budget by 2015-16.
· $400 million to extend the ecoENERGY Retrofit-Homes program for one year. The program offers rebates to help make homes more energy efficient.
· A new top-up benefit of up to $600 for single, low-income seniors and up to $840 for couples through the Guaranteed Income Supplement. Expected to cost more than $300 million.
· A new Family Caregiver Tax Credit which would save about $300 a year for people caring for sick or disabled relatives.
· A new 15 per cent Children's Arts Tax Credit for children's arts, culture, recreation and developmental activities which would save parents about $75 a year per child.
· A new initiative to attract health-care workers to rural and remote communities by forgiving up to $40,000 in student loans for doctors and $20,000 for nurses.
· A temporary Hiring Credit for Small Business of up to $1,000 against the increase in 2011 EI premiums to encourage hiring.
· Legislation to make the $2-billion Gas Tax Fund permanent to provide predictable infrastructure funding for municipalities.





push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks