Parry Sound-Muskoka Member of Provincial Parliament Graydon Smith said the budget, passed last week, is looking at long-term infrastructure plans and investments in healthcare like a four per cent increase to base hospital funding.
“Often governments are chastised for thinking short term and just election-to-election and I think what we’re doing is really trying to think about what’s going to build Ontario in the long term and keep us prosperous and keep us growing,” said Smith. “At the same time, working on the affordability side and keeping costs down.”
He said the Provincial budget is helping municipalities facilitate more housing by investing more than $1.8 billion in housing-enabling infrastructure funding to help build at least 1.5 million homes by 2031. This funding includes $1 billion for the new Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program and $625 million more for the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund,, bringing total funding to $825 million.
“With my old mayor’s hat on, one of the challenes we always had was infrastructure dollars, or building roads… water and sewer capacity, trying to think out long-term where the community is going but not always being able to get there because money wasn’t available,” said Smith. “This program is the Province and the Province alone stepping up and saying ‘we recognize that those kinds of projects in particular are incredibly important to be able to grow communities and facilitate housing.”
Smith said the Province is working on increasing affordable housing across Ontario through regulatory changes as well as investments into municipal infrastructure. “We think these investments in this type of infrastructure is really going to be a game changer for communities, not only in our riding but around the province.”
Electrifyig provincial parks, and that includes sites at Arrowhead Provincial Park as well as Bigwind, were among the announcements.
Smith said the Province also announced it would continue with the gas tax cut to December of this year “to make sure that during times when life is unaffordable in so many ways that we’re doing our part to make things more affordable, and also continuing some of the other programs around plates and driver’s licences and things like that, to keep those fees in people’s wallets so they can spend it on the things that are important to them and their family.”
Under his Ministry, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, Smith said the government has agreed to invest $60 million in the biomass program, aimed at using forestry residuals from the forestry industry in multiple streams. “What it’s going to do is really support our forestry sector. We’ve got a signficant sector in the riding and [we’re going to] provide new opportunities and we’re kind of going to drive what foestry is going to look like in the future, or at least part of it.”
Smith said the Province is also investing $16 million over the next three years to work with partners combatting invasive specias and their impact on Ontario’s ecosystem.
Other initiatives include increasing the number of family doctors in Ontario by creating a medical school through York University. Smith said prior to the budget, the Province also announced the expansion of seats at medical schools such as the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. Other initiatives have included funding for the expansion of multi-disciplinary health teams including the Algonquin Family Health Team and the Annex Health Care Clinic as well as teams in Burk’s Falls, Sundridge and Wasauksing First Nation. Smith noted that those continued investments are trying to get more people on a primary care roster. Other initiatives include making it easier for foreign trained doctors to work in Ontario.
Although the Province said it woud return to a balanced budget this year, it has predicted a $10 billion deficit.
“The economy is growing slower than anticipated but still we’re fortunate that we’re creating a lot of jobs and we’re not at a negative growth. It’s just growing slower so that impacts government revenue and agan I think you again have a decision point where you can really pull things in or you can keep going. And as our Finance Minister said, we’re going to keep going and make those investments in infrastructure… those long-term investments that are really fundamental for long-term, sustainable growth in the province…,” said Smith, adding that the provincial government if looking at long-term sustainability, growth and ensuring Ontario remains competitive.
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