Ford’s underspending out of touch with everyday Ontarians

August 2, 2023

QUEEN'S PARK — Ontario Greens leader and MPP for Guelph Mike Schreiner released the following statement in response to the publication of the Financial Accountability Office’s Q4 Expenditure Monitor 2022-23.

“Ontarians are caught in the crosshairs of so many interconnected crises: healthcare, housing, climate, mental health – the list goes on and on.

It’s unconscionable that in the midst of this hardship, the Ford government is once again underspending in every single sector – systematically starving the public services Ontarians depend on.

While our emergency rooms close due to chronic staffing shortages, this government is underspending on healthcare by $1.6 billion.

While hundreds of thousands of Ontarians are trapped in legislated poverty due to woefully outdated social assistance rates, the government is ending the year with $1.8 billion in a contingency fund.

Over the course of the last year, the government decreased spending plans for hospital operation, education, children’s and social services – including a cruel $119 million decrease for the Ontario Disability Support Program.

This lack of caring for the people of Ontario should trouble all of us.

How can this government continue to justify their systematic starving of public services while at the same time funnelling public dollars into for-profit healthcare and bulldozing farmlands and wetlands on the backs of everyday Ontarians?

The people of Ontario deserve so much better. People deserve a government that cares about them.

We need a government prepared to invest in the services that make our communities more caring, connected and climate-ready.

Ontario Greens are calling on the government to:

• Immediately double ODSP and OW rates
• Put a permanent end to expensive healthcare profiteering and reallocate dollars to the public system
• Stop wasting public resources fighting for Bill 124 in court, and commit to good wages and fair bargaining for all public-sector workers.”

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