THUNDER BAY - Northern members of provincial parliament say the 2021 budget does not go far enough to help Ontarians who need it most during the pandemic, including sectors in the north.
The Ford government tabled its 2021 budget on Wednesday that includes $186.1 billion in spending to support health care and the economy.
But NDP opposition MPPs Judith Monteith-Farrell (Thunder Bay–Atikokan MPP) and Sol Mamakwa (Kiiwetinoong) say the provincial government maintaining cuts to public health and education are leaving people struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There are several things I really wanted to see in the budget that weren’t there, like funding for public health that was cut and I wanted to see that cut rolled back and restoring the funding for public health. We know how essential that work is,” Monteith-Farrell said.
“The other big issue for me is the backlog on surgeries, especially considering the age of our population in Thunder Bay. We know the anxiety that causes. We have seen a commitment to that, but only about half the money to tackle that backlog.”
The budget did include funding to address the backlog of surgeries in Ontario that have been postponed in order to maintain hospital capacity during the pandemic.
There are also additional investments for training more personal support workers in long-term care homes. But Monteith-Farrell said that doesn’t go far enough when it comes to retaining workers.
“The other piece I really wanted to see in this and I was really hopeful, is that we have seen the government commit to funding for training for PSWs,” she said.
“We need those people for long-term care and home care but we didn’t see a commitment to paying them a living wage and ensuring their living and working conditions are sufficient. We can train all we want, if we don’t have that commitment, there’s nothing there for them.”
Mamakwa added that actions speak louder than words.
“I know one of the things that was very clear is the budget needed to get people help to get to the other side,” he said. “Not only that, but hope for the future. But I think the budget robs people of that hope.”
“I couldn’t help but reflect to 2019. Deep cuts when we remove 10,000 teachers, slash supports for children with autism, cutting public health units. We see that. We see the impacts.”
Here in the north, Monteith-Farrell said the province ignored major sectors in natural resources.
“The forest sector and the mining sector have worked throughout the pandemic and have done a heroic job to keep people safe and to do the work they need to do,” she said. “There was very little for them in this budget and they are big employers in our area.”
“In the north we are unique as well. To start looking at bringing services closer to home,” added Mamakwa. “One of the things this pandemic has done is expose the inequities that exist. Not just in Thunder Bay, but in fly-in First Nations, surrounding smaller municipalities, and how we need to work together and bring services close to home. It does not do that.”
The province is also providing financial assistance to small businesses affected by the pandemic with the Ontario Small Business Support Grant.
Monteith-Farrell said more should be done to help businesses who may have fallen through the cracks and do no qualify, as well as other sectors that have been severely affected by lock downs.
“The small business sector have been saying, while they are happy to see the financing continue, especially in our area because we are in lockdown, we’ve seen businesses that have been very severely impacted, like our personal services sector,” she said.
“They have been shutdown for months. An injection of cash may be what they need, but it’s a far cry from what they would have made. They are suffering.”
