{"id":38538,"date":"2020-11-06T08:16:47","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T13:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/?p=38538"},"modified":"2020-11-06T08:17:58","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T13:17:58","slug":"fords-budget-doesnt-take-any-new-actions-to-make-families-healthier-and-safer-ndp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/06\/fords-budget-doesnt-take-any-new-actions-to-make-families-healthier-and-safer-ndp\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford\u2019s budget doesn\u2019t take any new actions to make families healthier and safer: NDP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Doug Ford\u2019s 2020 budget is waving a white flag in the battle against COVID-19, and telling people: you\u2019re on your own.<\/p>\n<p>With Ontario on the brink of a health and economic disaster, Doug Ford\u2019s budget doesn\u2019t take any new actions to make everyday families safer or healthier. In fact, as the second wave of COVID-19 rises, Ford\u2019s 2020-21 budget contains a nearly $100 million cut to planned spending on long-term care compared to the March fiscal plan for 2020-21. There is also nothing in the budget to make schools safer by capping class sizes, even after the government\u2019s own data showed schools were a source of COVID-19 outbreaks, and there are no new investments in public health, despite rationed testing and contact tracing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoug Ford is telling seniors in dangerously understaffed long-term care homes that more staff won\u2019t come in this year \u2013 they\u2019re on their own,\u201d said Horwath. \u201cHe\u2019s leaving more than 30 kids packed into classrooms. He\u2019s chosen to give no new money to public health, leaving families at grave risk. Mr. Ford\u2019s budget has no help for the jobs and small businesses at risk of disappearing. Workers aren\u2019t even getting the paid sick days they need to stay home and stop the spread.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s throwing in the towel on the fight against COVID-19, and telling people, families and businesses that no help is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ford\u2019s first budget in 2019 included cutting thousands of teachers and education workers, cutting supports for children with autism, and making cuts to long-term care. Those cuts and others were not reversed in this budget.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of Thursday\u2019s budget, Horwath and the NDP called for:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Immediate funding relief for the hospital sector and sustainable, timely ongoing funding<\/li>\n<li>Hiring an army of public health staff to bolster testing, contact tracing and labs<\/li>\n<li>Funding to immediately hire a minimum of 10,000 PSWs and raise their pay by at least $5 an hour<\/li>\n<li>Fund a class size cap of 15 for the pandemic, and ongoing funding for class size reduction after the pandemic<\/li>\n<li>Direct and meaningful financial supports for small businesses and their workers facing lost income<\/li>\n<li>Paid sick days for all workers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cInvesting in people and businesses now will save us so much \u2014 it will save lives, it will save jobs, and it will save us the anguish and much greater expense of a longer and deeper struggle with COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Doug Ford\u2019s 2020 budget is waving a white flag in the battle against COVID-19, and telling people: you\u2019re on your own. With Ontario on the brink of a health and economic disaster, Doug Ford\u2019s budget doesn\u2019t take any new actions to make everyday families safer or healthier. In fact, as &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":6313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 17:02:52","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\/38538","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\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38539,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38538\/revisions\/38539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}