October 31, 2024
Gélinas: If I had $200 or make that $3 billion
QUEEN’S PARK – This morning before question period, MPP France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) made a member’s statement focussed on the Ford government’s skewed priorities.
“Speaker, this province is going three billion dollars farther into debt so that the government can send a $200 cheque to every adult and child in this province. If the government thinks that will make the people of Ontario forget that they don’t have a family doctor; that their homecare worker doesn’t show up half the time or that their kids can’t drink the water in their school because of old lead pipes, they are dreaming.
I suppose a family can spend this two hundred bucks on a tablet and streaming service to watch movies while they sit for 20 or 30 hours or more in the emergency department, or for extra gas to drive to the next town because their emergency room is closed.
As Ontarians try to decide how to spend their $200 the government has borrowed on their behalf:
– 2000 people sick enough to be admitted to a hospital are laying in a hallway or a bathroom,
– cancer patients still pay out of pocket for take home cancer drugs,
– children’s aid societies in Algoma and North Bay are close to bankruptcy,
– thirty thousand children are on the waitlist for mental health services,
– and 73,000 on the autism wait list
– parks in communities across this province are filled with homeless encampments
– no 4 laning of HWY 69 the list goes on.
Yet this Premier, this government, is ignoring these problems and adding 3 billion dollars to the deficit in a shameless attempt to buy votes.”
According to yesterday’s Fall Economic Statement Ontario’s government debt stands at approximately $429 billion and the current deficit for the fiscal year is projected at around $6.6 billion.