The last federal budget before this October\u2019s election short-changed Northern Ontario, and mostly missed the mark, according to the NDP\u2019s Northern Ontario MPs, Carol Hughes and Charlie Angus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a disappointing budget for Canadians who need help right now to make ends meet,\u201d said Hughes. \u201cThis budget is disconnected from most people\u2019s reality and the challenges we are facing together.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA paltry $6 million for FedNor when the Atlantic and Northern agencies got $67 million and $95 million shows that this government doesn\u2019t have any vision when it comes to developing Northern Ontario\u2019s economy,\u201d said Angus. \u201cThe money for forestry is welcome, but it remains to be seen exactly how much Northern Ontario will see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hughes and Angus feel the budget was full of items that won\u2019t help immediately and were designed to look as if the government is tackling problems that need much more attention than they were given.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are lots of half-measures and nice words, but the money being spent isn\u2019t enough,\u201d said Hughes. \u201cThe money going into broadband is a good example. The dollar amount sounds great until you realize it\u2019s being rolled out over the next thirteen years. The north needs that infrastructure now!\u201d
\nAngus said the same thing goes for issues important to First Nations who are seeing no new money for education, housing and other important needs.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s no new core funding for on-reserve primary and secondary education and there isn\u2019t nearly enough to implement Jordan\u2019s Principle,\u201d said Angus. \u201cThere\u2019s no new funding for on-reserve housing, despite urgent needs and enormous backlogs for repair. These are real needs and they\u2019re not being met. Canadians saw the realities of Cat Lake, and too many communities across the north are facing similar conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hughes notes the government\u2019s timid steps towards pharmacare are meant to sound like progress but won\u2019t change things for Canadians who can\u2019t afford the medication they need.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis budget shows that pharmacare has been pushed off to future years,\u201d said Hughes. \u201cThe budget does not include funding for it in its fiscal framework and the recommendations that preceded this made it clear this government is protecting insurance providers and pharmaceutical companies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The last federal budget before this October\u2019s election short-changed Northern Ontario, and mostly missed the mark, according to the NDP\u2019s Northern Ontario MPs, Carol Hughes and Charlie Angus. \u201cThis is a disappointing budget for Canadians who need help right now to make ends meet,\u201d said Hughes. \u201cThis budget is disconnected from most people\u2019s reality and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-federal"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 20:01:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20756,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20755\/revisions\/20756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}