Latest / Kvetch & Release / 2024 Ontario Budget – MPP Lisa Gretzky reaction

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2024 Ontario Budget – MPP Lisa Gretzky reaction · Kvetch & Release

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  The twenty twenty four Ontario budget has dropped two hundred and fourteen and a half
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  billion dollars in overall spending for twenty four and twenty five twenty twenty four to
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  twenty five a billion in new municipal housing, infrastructure program six hundred and twenty
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  five million, to repair and expand water infrastructure hundreds of million. There's lots
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  of spending. It's the biggest budget that we've ever had. We found out
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  that we're not going to be balancing the budget until at least before the election.
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  There were up to there were nineteen mentions for Windsor in the document,
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  the first mention being the battery plant. But it's already being panned a little
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  bit. Not no, not surprisingly out of the Toronto Star. We've got
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  a headline here that says Doug Ford's budget insures Ontario won't thrive. It is
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  written by columnist Martin Regg Cohen, who says the bloom is off Ontario.
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  The economy is wilting, revenues are drying up, and the deficit is taking
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  root, digging in deeper than Ford ever fathomed. Joining me right now to
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  discuss is Windsor West MPP Lisa Gretzky to get the reaction right here to the
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  budget, Lisa, anything you liked in it? Not particularly, No,
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  this was a budget that if you were someone who was looking for a change,
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  as life is very difficult for many people in this province, if you
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  were looking for some sort of positive change, this was really not a budget
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  for you. This is a government who you know you mentioned Windsor was mentioned
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  nineteen times, all the announcements, things they've already previously announced. There's there's
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  areas where it's just status quo, and as the cost of everything is going
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  up, the government really needed to be investing the money wisely. And what
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  we've seen over the course of the last year or more is this government is
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  not spending the money where it needs to be spent. Okay, So right
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  off the bat, nothing that you saw really in it that you liked.
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  Was there anything that really stood out where you went, this is what they're
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  spending their money on when we have other priorities. Well, well, I'm
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  glad you asked that question, because just before you brought me live on air,
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  there was one of the government's ads that ran one of their self congratulatory
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  ads. Part of the ads that we actually just debated yesterday, emotion that
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  we had tabled to put an end to those ads. Something the Conservative government
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  actually brought emotions forward to term stop the Liberals from doing what they were in
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  government. They have spent tens of millions of dollars on the self congratulatory ads
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  that bring nothing to the table for the people of the province. It is
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  not addressing the cost of living crisis. It is not addressing the wait times
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  for people to be able to access healthcare. It's not addressing the shortage of
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  primary care physicians, it's not addressing the shortage and childcare. It's not addressing
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  the housing crisis that we are currently in and the cost of living crisis.
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  So I would say one of the things that the government could have done immediately
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  was stop spending money on those partisans congratulatory taxpayer money and do a real reality
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  check and spend some of that money in the healthcare sector, the education sector,
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  the housing sector, you name it, in order to be able to
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  provide better supports and services for people in our community and across the province.
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  So one thing that does stand out to me is that they're continuing to spend
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  seven point three billion dollars in annual energy subsidies, all from the pockets of
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  you know, taxpayers to all rate keeper, all rate payers to keep hydro
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  rates artificially low. Martin red Cohen is saying, you know, that's not
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  investing, that's diverting money that's best used elsewhere. What's your thoughts. Yeah,
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  this is a government to when they were the official opposition, and their
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  liberal government for fifteen years supported in fact started a previous conservative government started the
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  privatization of hydro. Why we're continuing to see the cost to go up.
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  They just approved for natural gas to They overrode an Oeed decision to allow the
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  natural gas providers to charge above the normal increase to people that rely on natural
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  gas. So this is a government who wants to say, on one end,
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  look at how we're making life easier for you by by providing these tax
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  payered subsidies, but on the other side brings forward policies that are actually inflating
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  the cost on the front end to people. So that's why we're seeing that
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  people aren't really finding a lot of relief from the every day costs of living
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  because the government is basically you know, taking from one hand and passing it
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  out through the other, and that's not good policy. Again, it's about
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  investing the money wisely. Well, I will just say that the government has
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  said they're investing two billion over three years in home care services and nearly a
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  billion more for hospitals, and hundreds of millions more to expand primary care coverage.
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  But you know, judging us from what you're saying right now, what
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  they're doing isn't enough. That it's not allocated in the right places. Well,
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  we're seeing a wait times, emergency room wait times continuing to be very
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  very high for people needing to access emergency care. We're seeing still a shortage
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  of positions and interdisciplinary clinics so having those practitioners and social workers and you name
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  it. We're not seeing the investments in mental health and addictions care. I
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  will point to Safepoint and how we're still waiting, still waiting to find out
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  about funding for that, and the recent stories that have been running about people
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  parents with children who can't as access the mental health care supports that they need
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  and are now feeling like they're forced to surrender their kids to the CAS.
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  Nothing in this budget that is going to address that, and really the government
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  hasn't even taken into account the remedy for Bill one twenty four where they attack
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  the healthcare workers and suppress their wages, and now the court found that unconstitutional
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  as we knew they would, and the government hasn't taken into account or is
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  he being upfront with the public about the fact that that's going to cost about
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  a billion dollars so that court remedy to those those healthcare workers. In the
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  meantime, we have hemorrhaged healthcare workers from the sector and it's going to be
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  very very hard to recover from that billions and billions and billions of dollars.
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  It doesn't mean it's going to solve all our problems. Sometimes, you know,
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  people say, you keep throwing money at it without figuring out what you're
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  going to do with it. You're just throwing money at it. Of course,
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  you're in opposition, your jobs to oppose. We appreciate the perspective that
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  you provided right now with us. Lisa really appreciate it. Yeah, I
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  appreciate the plan. Thank you. John