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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1995-12-06, Page 6Page 6 Times -Advocate, December 6, 1995 Feature MPP Helen Johns speaks about provincial budget L!ving on Less is a special profile series featuring people affected by government cutbacks. Budget affects municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals, as well as Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority and OMAFRA • T -A: Starting with...local mu- nicipalities, how will this mini bud- get affect them? Helen: Well, the municipalities were cut by approximately two per cent. I was in Goderich today (Dec. I) and the ratio was four per cent actually, of their total gross rev- enue... Most of the municipalities have known for a long time we were moving towards this and have start- ed to plan for it and so they're in fairly good shape. I expect none of them to be raising taxes, for an ex- ample, which would be maybe the way they would have to go if they hadn't planned on this before. One of the things that I think you'll see is...some of the mu- nicipalities and townships merging together, amalgamating to be able to find some efficiencies in a larger economy of scale. So that will happen, there's no question about that and we've seen the starts of that in your paper last week where Exeter and Stephen were talking about it. You're also seeing the same in other communities, towns and townships around. So, we probably w'll have bigger spheres of govern- ment but it will still be local to try and minimize the costs and the ad- ministration associated with mu- nicipalities. The taxpayer is paying way too much money in government and they can't afford to pay that kind of money they've been paying. T -A: So, these amalgamations you're talking about, do you thinly they'll happen quickly? Helen: I think there'll be some in- centive to do them fairly quickly because, just the ability to use one another's c.tpitol assets...and to get the maximum use out of those things will make towns and sur- rounding communities decide that it may be more economical for them to be together. There has to be advantages and they have to look at them...With the cuts that we've made, it's four per cent of their gross revenue but it's pretty much 50 per cern of what the province gives them so 1 don't want to minimize either, how much. ...You have to understand both sides of that coin...It's a pretty sub- stantial dollar from the standpoint of the municipalities so they have to do something. T -A: With the Ausable Bayfield Conservation (Authority)... Helen: When conservation areas were set up, they had a very limited mandate and the mandate was that ...any of thy, areas that revolved around water were to be taken care of by the conservation authorities. Ours being as good as it is, has blossomed out over the years and it's done a number of different things. Some services were du- plicated. For example, the planting of trees was done by the Ausable Bayfield and it was also done by the Ministry of Natural Resources. ...It was just a very...thoughtful thinking association that kept ex- panding what it could do for the community. Across Ontario, some are as good as Ausable Bayfield and some are not as good as our Ausable Bayfield and a lot of them had a lot of administration and not much work in the community... As a result of that they looked at the conservation areas as a total and said, 'Hey, there's lots of things that aren't working well in the con- servation authority and we're going t3 pull you back to your original mandate.' And so we pulled them back to the original mandate. Now, for people in the southern part of the county...it's probably not a good day from the standpoint of the conservation authorities because they did a lot of good things for us. They did the curb program which is...keeping the...sides of the walls on the beaches from col- lapsing. They did a lot of good things but overall it was looked at and it was felt that the money wasn't economically being spent. Unfortunately, in our case, it was a really good program and that's one of, I think the things that I'm...least happy about in the budget. But I think what will happen is as we watch to see who takes over... and how the private sector can come in, Ausable Bayfield will well survive...Tom Prout's a mag- nificent manager and a great person to be running our conservation au- thority so I think we'll see funding from another way. T -A: Concerning schools, then... Hele:►: There's some really good news in the budget about Huron County schools...I was just at a meeting and Paul Carroll was there and one of the things it says in the budget is that there's go- ing to be a more equitable dis- tribution throughout the province of Ontario. T -A: Now, with the school boards, these changes will be hap- pening quickly, won't they?...The reductions? Helen: Some will be Starting fair- ly quickly... T -A: So, with hospitals, what about the hospital in Exeter? Helen: What's happened is there's been...cuts to hospitals and I think it's important for the people to understand that in the last num- ber of years we've closed a number of hospitals beds but we've never closed a building... " What's happened is that we've spent more and more money on long term care...The people who have home care and have VON nurses come into their com- munity...those dollars keep in- creasing. They've increased by about 13 per cent in the county of ' last year and the year be- fore hospitals can look at making these changes %Within the dollars they have to make and still providing front-line service to all of us as we need it. You know, as you go into the emergency room and want to take your kids in there, there should be people there but there maybe shouldn't be five administrations. • T -A: Do you know how quickly those changes will be taking place? Helen: They're over the next three years. That's one of the things the hospitals wanted to have. They wanted to have the ability to know where we were taking them over the next three years so they could plan more effectively what was happening. And this is the first time government has ever done that...The '96-'97 year - 5 per cent, 6 per cent and 7 their family, a health disaster, they're unable to afford their health care. And so we've been able to put 140,000 people onto the Trillium Plan as a result of these other peo- ple making contributions to them. We call them the working poor, the people who are working for a very low income but are still work- ing. And for the first time they'll have the security of knowing that they have a health package that will al- low them to have their pret scriptions filled and that will allow them to therefore not be...put into debt as a result of some serious health problem that might come to a family. So we've been able to reduce the deductible down for these people for them to be able to get health care so I think it's very exciting and a lot of our people in the county could fall into that 140,000 who've never had health care be- fore and now may be able to get some so... ...There's a certain amount of money that the province pays and then there's a certain amount of tax that's collected and it goes toward the education of the student. Because we are geographically so dispersed. our level for our children is substantially less per child per day at school than it is, for ex- ample, in Toronto. So the Toronto child has much more money thrown at them to go to school and that's why you see probably better computers. You see...more trips. You see a lot of things that they can do that we can't afford to do. It has always been the contention of us in rural Ontario that that mon- ey should be more economically di- vided...The businesses that have their offices in Toronto, they don't get the revenue just from the To- ronto people. They get it from rural Ontario too and so we have said in this budget that we will certainly make sure that there's a more equitable way of funding throughout Ontario and any equitable way of funding will help Huron County. So it's a really good news item. It will probably take us a while to get that in. It's a very good news item for Huron County and equity fund- ing is going to help us out a lot. So there's good things and there's bad things with the school. You know, it's changed. We're asking them to...once again cut their administration and it will be difficult for them because they run a pared down ship. But on the other side we'll also be looking at this equity funding which will help every parent who has a child in the school system to get a more balanced dollar value. Even if we don't go up to the level that Toronto has, any change will be a change in the right direction. and as we've used alternatives to hospital beds, we have never reduced the funding. We have reduced it but not as substantially as we've reduced the usage in the hospital. And so basically we're saying that we need to reallocate money within there to be able to have long term care because people want it. They want to be in their com- munity. They don't want to be in the hospital if they can help it. They want to be at home. And we need to take some of that money from the hospitals and put it into long term care. We also need to take some of the money from the hospitals because there'll be a number of re- structuring deals going on through- out all of Ontario and some of them require capitol cost. As the community decides through their district health council how they want their community to look and what they want from their hospitals, the province may need money to be able to do what they want to have done...We have to have money for that...more plan- ning for that in the future... ...There's going to have to be some real change about what kind of services the hospital delivers, how many services and how they can best do that... We have five administrators for 250 beds in Huron County and we have to look if that's the way to go to, if we need that kind of ad- ministration, if we need, you know, five different payrolls, if we need five service food programs. So there's lots of ways that the p er cent.... If you take all of the rev- enue they get, it's 4, 5 and 6 per cent. T -A: With the mini budget, it's focused on those four major areas. Are there any smaller organizations or groups that are being affected by the budget that maybe have not been talked about that are local that should be mentioned? Helen: There are a few of them. One of the groups of people who are being hit in some ways are the people who use the OTB - Ontario Drug Benefit Plan. What has hap- pened with the Ontario Drug Ben- efit Plan is you have seniors using it and you have people on welfare using it. And we have asked them to make a co -payment every time they get a prescription filled. And so for people under a certain income, which is $16,000 if you're single, or $24,000 if you're a mar- ried couple, you'll have to pay $2 for every prescription you get filled. And for anybody who is over that income, they'll have a hundred dol- lars which they'll have to pay which will cover their first number of prescriptions and then after that their prescriptions will be filled at no cost to them. The reason we did this (is) be- cause there are a number of people and especially in Huron County...both people work or one person works and they don't collect any assistance from the govern- ment. But if there's a disaster that hits It's a pro and it's a con. You know, there's some people out there who were getting benefits who were...getting all their pre- scription paid for, who have a lot of in- come and they will be affected a little bit by it as they contribute their $100 to help these working poor get on a health plan. 1 think people will be fairly hap- py about helping someone else. t hope they will be. I believe that's what Huron County's all about. So, 1 think it's a good plan, but...certainly people will be af- fected there... Your college and university stu- dents are affected but we're going to work harder to make the loan program more viable so that people can get loans and they don't have to start to pay them until they get to work... It won't matter about the income of the parents. They can just get the loan so you don't have those people who couldn't get it before because the parents both worked and didn't have enough money. You know, that was always a tough one, if your parents worked and didn't have enough money to put you through. They made too much of an income to get you a stu- dent loan... That's what we're going to try and eliminate...But we're going to really going to go after the people who get the loans and make them pay them back when they have the income. There's a lot that have nev- er been collected back... Administrative changes to the government made some changes in the county...It probably will affect AMAFRA a little bit. There's still decisions to be made about where those cuts will be so I can't really tell you for sure but there'll be some...very small administrative cuts to agriculture and 1 think that's about it. T -A: What's your personal re- action then to the mini budget in general? Helen: Well, I think it's a step in the right direction...a second step in the right direction. As you know, the reason I run for politics is be- cause I believe that we have to get this debt under control... We will have no health care, no education for the next generation if we don't get this under control. It's growing so quickly. And so from my standpoint it reduces the deficit each year our revenue is less than our expenses... We're half way through it. I mean, that's very exciting for me and I believe that people who are concerned about the future of On- tario will be pleased by it... ...But there's lots of people along the line who's it's going to af- fect...l'm always concerned about the human cost of today versus the human cost, for my kids and my grandkids and then that's the tough part... But 1 think...if we don't get it un- der control, our kids will be work- ing their entire lives to pay off a debt we incur with no advantage to them. They won't have education. They won't have health care and I think we can't do it to them. So I think it's a positive in the fact that we're getting...closer to spending what we earn. One of the interesting stats is...every hour. as we sit here for an hour, the govern- ment spends a million dollars more than it actually earns and so it's a frightening dollar value when you think about that. It's, you know, S800 for every than. woman and child. I mean, it's...growing quickly and so your standpoint... as a young parent, (you) don't want (your) kids to have that kind of debt...and I wouldn't do it to them myself and I ,don't think we as government should do it to them either. So from my standpoint it's a good step in the right direction and hopefully we can find other ways to get the rest of it down and get working on a balanced budget be- cause if we have a balanced budget. we'll have a better economy. As we have a better economy, jobs will come in and we'll start to see a better economic environment to get some of these people to work who want to work, who we don't have jobs for. T -A: How long do you think that would take for the economy to im- prove? Helen: We're hoping to balance the budget still within...another two years. I mean. I think that...as peo- ple see us working towards that, there will be a little bit of economic revival but...lt will take us a while to get that going. We have to get people confident again and people aren't confident about the way the government is tunning...1 think it'll take a while still but 1 think we're certainly on the right track. 1 i% ink 011 1 c.o.: \ '.(rit'• 11� i{i 11(1.1I{ur-l.t• • Next week Living on Less will conclude with a look at creative solu- tions to the effects of government cuts.