{"id":2896,"date":"2017-04-28T11:41:50","date_gmt":"2017-04-28T15:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wawa-news.com\/?p=2896"},"modified":"2017-04-28T11:47:16","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T15:47:16","slug":"ndp-wynnes-budget-doesnt-undo-the-damage-shes-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/2017\/04\/28\/ndp-wynnes-budget-doesnt-undo-the-damage-shes-done\/","title":{"rendered":"NDP: Wynne\u2019s budget doesn\u2019t undo the damage she\u2019s done"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Apr 28, 2017 @ 11:41<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Showing how out of touch she is with Ontario families, Kathleen Wynne\u2019s budget fails to undo the damage she has done to affordability for people, or the services they count on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s clear from this budget is that Ontarians waiting for a $15 minimum wage will have to wait for a change in government,\u201d said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.\u00a0\u201cThe 85 per cent of Ontarians that want a public hydro system and reform that will get their bills down, and keep them down \u2013 they\u2019ll have to wait for a change in government. And the vast majority of the 2.2 million Ontarians without a drug plan won\u2019t get the help they need until after the election.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Wynne government\u2019s 2017-18 budget, released Thursday, ignores Ontarians who have been feeling the squeeze caused by high prices for hydro, housing, medication and so much more.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>\u201cThis budget doesn\u2019t even come close to undoing the damage Kathleen Wynne and her Liberals have done over the last 14 years,\u201d said Horwath.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>While providing drug coverage for children is necessary, the OHIP+ program leaves millions of people without coverage. One-third of all working Ontarians have no prescription drug coverage. Horwath has presented a universal Pharmacare program, which will provide prescription drug coverage to all Ontarians.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The budget commits to even further <\/strong>privatization<strong> of Hydro One, even though the budget shows Ontario is already losing $1.2 billion in annual revenue as a result of the <\/strong>privatization<strong> so far \u2013 money that used to pay for schools, hospitals and more. Horwath has presented a plan to bring bills down by 30 per cent and bring Hydro One back into public ownership.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Hospital funding falls more than $300 million short of what hospitals say they need. Pinning hospital funding down to annual inflation \u2013 two per cent \u2013 the budget won\u2019t begin to\u00a0reverse the damage of Wynne\u2019s fired nurses, cancelled surgeries and overcrowded ERs.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The budget ignores badly needed reforms to employment laws, overlooking the long-overdue Changing Workplaces Review and failing to implement a $15 minimum wage.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>With 300 schools on the chopping block today, there is no commitment in the budget to stop closing schools. A $4.6 million slash to special education across 15 school boards will go ahead, according to the budget.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The budget continues to ignore the province\u2019s responsibility for operating costs for transit, and does nothing to make transit better, or more affordable for students and working families. The NDP has committed to a 50-per-cent funding agreement along with its municipal partners.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The budget does only the bare minimum to meet previous, already inadequate promises on early learning and child care.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cKathleen Wynne watched the price of housing skyrocket while subsidized housing stock was allowed to crumble and be shut down. She sold off Hydro One without the consent of its owners \u2013 the people of Ontario \u2013 while denying that skyrocketing hydro bills were a problem for people. And she sat by while family after family, young person after young person, struggled under the weight of growing personal debt,\u201d said Horwath.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHospitals have suffered through nine years of cuts and four years of frozen budgets. As a result, there are at least 250 patients in hallways and closets instead of proper hospital rooms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKathleen Wynne just doesn\u2019t get that people are being squeezed, and the services they count on are at a tipping point. Now is the time for big ideas, and a big priority shift to put people back at the centre of government.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith this budget, it\u2019s clear Ontario won\u2019t even get to undo any of the damage done by Kathleen Wynne \u2013 let alone move ahead to a brighter future for Ontario people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apr 28, 2017 @ 11:41 Showing how out of touch she is with Ontario families, Kathleen Wynne\u2019s budget fails to undo the damage she has done to affordability for people, or the services they count on. \u201cWhat\u2019s clear from this budget is that Ontarians waiting for a $15 minimum wage will have to wait for &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[324],"class_list":["post-2896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-provincial","tag-2017-ontario-budget"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-30 04:25:03","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\/2896","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2897,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896\/revisions\/2897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}