NDP Standing Up for Healthcare, Education and Public Services. PCs and Liberals side together to vote for cuts and privatization

Queen’s Park – Today the Ontario Legislature debated an NDP Motion which called for an end to the Liberal government’s cuts to healthcare, education, childcare, transportation, housing and their reckless privatization plans. However, Liberal and Conservative MPPs sided together to vote against the motion which calls for investing in services, creating jobs, making life more affordable, and looking at greater tax fairness including rolling back existing corporate giveaways.

“The 2014 Liberal budget has led to nurses being fired, school closures, closing childcare centres and a plan to put our publicly owned hydro companies under the control and ownership of Bay Street speculators,” said Andrea Horwath, Leader of Ontario’s New Democrats. “Somehow when a new Liberal scandal pops up the Premier can always find the chequebook, but when it comes to childcare, schools or nurses, the Premier says the well has run dry.”

New Democrats pointed out that in December 2014 Ontario’s Auditor General showed that $8 billion had been wasted by using private financing for public projects. The Auditor said that the Liberal and Conservative approach to Alternative Finance and Procurement, more commonly known as P3 (Public Private Partnerships) “were estimated to be nearly $8 billion higher than they were estimated to be if the projects were [. . .] managed by the public sector.” Under an AFP or P3 model, a private construction or financing agency will manage the construction of public infrastructure adding immense cost to the project.

On June 25 2014, Don Drummond, the Liberal hand-picked economist and author of the Drummond Report, appeared on TVO’s The Agenda and said the Liberal plan would mean 100,000 job cuts. Bloomberg News says the Liberal plan will lead to the “Deepest Cuts since Harris.”

“People are looking for a  plan to create jobs, improve public services and make life more affordable. Instead the Liberals are cutting the bottom out of services, making life more expensive, and selling off assets that put money into the provincial bank account,” said NDP Finance Critic, Catherine Fife the MPP for Kitchener-Waterloo. “Our motion calls for a balanced approach. I’m disappointed that the Premier teamed up with the Conservatives to vote for cuts and austerity.”

Text of Motion

Whereas the 2014 Liberal budget:

Cuts 6% out of nearly every ministry;

Cuts healthcare and fires nurses;

Cuts education and closes schools;

Cuts transportation and closes bus stations across the North;

Cuts affordable housing and slashes $86 million out of Toronto’s social housing programs;

Privatizes public hydro companies and sells off our public assets;

Opens new corporate tax loopholes that don’t create jobs, but helps wealthy companies buy luxury sports tickets;

Fails to address tax fairness or consider any modest changes to corporate tax rates;

Makes life more expensive for families by letting hydro bills and gas prices rise;

Will mean firing 100,000 people according to the Liberal’s own hand-picked economist Don Drummond; and

News agencies have said the Liberal Budget will mean the “Deepest cuts since Harris.”

Therefore, it is the opinion of this House that the 2015 Budget should stop cutting services, privatizing and selling off assets, putting wealthy corporations ahead of people, and instead of continuing the Liberal austerity program, explore rolling back corporate giveaways while maintaining a competitive combined corporate tax rate, create jobs, invest in services and make life more affordable for the 13 million Ontarians who make our province work.