Ford’s underspending by billions on vital public services hurts people

March 1, 2023

QUEEN'S PARK — Ontario Greens leader and MPP for Guelph Mike Schreiner released the following statement in response to the release of the Financial Accountability Office’s Q3 Expenditure Monitor 2022-23.

“Given the Premier’s track record of underspending on the public services we all rely on, it’s no surprise that his government underspent on so many major sectors – to the tune of $6.4 billion – in the first three quarters of 2022-2023.

It’s simply unacceptable that once again the Ford government is starving our healthcare system of financial resources at a time when the healthcare system is in crisis. 

Some of the more troubling details: $1.2 billion underspent on healthcare, including $125 million on long-term care and $361 million on funding to hospitals. $452 million on social programs like ODSP and OW.

This lack of transparency around public spending should trouble all of us.

It’s also unconscionable at a time when our public healthcare system is crumbling, operating rooms sit empty due to staffing shortages, and hundreds of thousands of Ontarians are forced into legislated poverty by social assistance rates far below the poverty line.

How can the Ford government continue to justify their systematic starving of public services while at the same time funnelling public dollars into private, for-profit healthcare and bulldozing farmlands and wetlands to line speculator pockets?

The people of Ontario deserve so much better. We deserve a government prepared to invest in the services that make our lives better. 

Ontario Greens are calling on the government to:

• Immediately double ODSP and OW rates
• Halt their fiscally irresponsible funding to private, for-profit health facilities and reallocate those dollars to the public system
• Stop wasting public resources fighting for Bill 124 in court, and commit to paying public sector workers fairly.”

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