The Ford government stated this week that they will be easing off on some of their cuts to public healthcare and education. Is this the right decision given their agenda? Polls have not been in Doug Ford’s favour recently, and this is primarily because of the “deep” cuts he has been making to government programs.

The Ford government was elected on their agenda that they were going to find efficiencies in the budget in order to bring the province back to fiscal balance. They made a number of promises including this one, and for the most part, they have gone through with every single one. They cancelled the provincial carbon tax imposed by Ford’s predecessor, Kathleen Wynne, and they lowered the minimum price of beer to $1/unit. Ford’s first year was eventful, and he addressed many of the highlights of his campaign. He is now facing backlash.

Many opinion articles now saying Ontario has a “drinking problem” and that they need an “intervention”, though Premier Ford does not drink. At the end of the day, if you give Ford’s initial agenda a review, you will see that he ran heavily on the fact that he was going to bring the province back to fiscal balance without raising taxes. This includes finding efficiencies in order to save money. These savings have to come from somewhere.

The fact that the majority of Ontarians have not considered, is that the province is currently paying $13.3 billion per year in interest on the debt. This is a large expenditure in the provinces total annual budget. This large number could be spent on better things, perhaps on healthcare and education, the programs that have faced the most publicity for having funding cut.

Here is another thing to consider. When people say “cut”, what does this actually mean? No one has actually “cut” or removed any funding from either of these programs. The government is actually increasing spending on both of them this year. They are just simply not spending as much as Wynne had planned to. Spending a little bit less on things that have been looked into and have proven to be ineffective and not worth the investment since being implemented by the previous government. These include things such as the smaller class sizes that were put into place by Kathleen Wynne. Over the life span of this project, test scores in elementary and high schools have been on a steady decline. Why would we continue to feed this project with funding if it has very well proven to be ineffective?

One last point that needs to be made is the fact that in bringing the provinces finances back to balance without raising taxes, cuts need to be made somewhere. The Progressive Conservative party of Ontario are right leaning. Right leaning parties typically tend to loosely run their economic policies on the theory of capitalism. Capitalism as a method of economics is based on low taxes and giving the private sector more freedom and responsibility. If Ontario elected a Progressive Conservative majority, they need to realize that they are not going to get a party that is going to continue to raise taxes, and largely increase spending on government programs. They are going to get a party that is going to lower taxes and shrink the government, which is exactly what the Ford PC’s are doing.

References

“Why the Ford Government Is Postponing Municipal Funding Cuts | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 28 May 2019, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-ontario-municipal-cuts-federal-election-1.5151160.

Postmedia News. “EDITORIAL: Ontario Liberals Buried Us in Debt We Have to Repay.” Toronto Sun, 25 May 2019, torontosun.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-ontario-liberals-buried-us-in-debt-we-have-to-repay.

Paling, Emma. “Ford Will Have To Make Deeper Cuts To Meet His Goals, Watchdog Says.” HuffPost Canada, HuffPost Canada, 22 May 2019, www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/ontario-needs-another-6-billion-cuts-watchdog_ca_5ce58a5be4b0db9c2991c762.

“Ontario Voters Are Giving up on Doug Ford According to New Study.” BlogTO, www.blogto.com/city/2019/05/ontario-doug-ford-giving-up/.