Tuesday 25 March 2008

Provincial Budget

Do you think Flaherty is going for sound bytes? Last time they cut taxes we lost hospital beds, and education funding. How can we pay for infrastructure without a tax base?
They run on a platform of cutting taxes (Flaherty: Federal Tories) and take out those who are committed to providing Provincial services (Ontario Liberals).

Many coalitions are fighting for adequate funding. The government provides $118 per diem per day for a child in foster care. It costs $200/day since we have to outsource to private group homes here in the north. We don't have the funding to spend time recruiting and following the elaborate training procedures required by the Ministry. In LTC there isn't the funding to do the work required, and the onerous paperwork demanded in both education, mental and physical health care compounds the issue. What are they thinking?

Here in the north we have huge issues is accessing resources (human and physical). Those navel-gazing Toronto dudes...
I can't wait to see what the Ontario Budget says about Long-Term Care. The Federal Finance Minister (Flaherty) is lobbying in public to tell Provincial Premier, McGuinty (Liberal), to cut business taxes. If he does that how will we pay for any of our services?

Last time that happened we had to close hospital beds.

Flaherty (Conservative) wants to screw up the Ontario economy (driven by Liberal provincial politicians).

How stupid do they think the electorate is?

You can't cut taxes and offer services. It has nothing to do with keeping business in Ontario. It has to do with everyone helping to pay for the services that keep at-risk kids and offenders off of the streets and getting the help they need. Big business wants a bail out (i.e., the automotive industry) even though we don't make the kinds of cars people want to buy. For those making $50,000 per year to build a car? Why do folks demand we dump tax dollars into private business for this purpose? Let's build cars people want to buy (the ZENN car!). Let's pay Canadians to do the work that needs to be done, rather than outsourcing.

Why do I phone another country to get help from my bank of credit card company?
Why do we not pay people a fair wage for work that needs to be done?

Let's pay for our fair share of oil, gas, hydro.

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