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Where should Ontario cut its spending?

by Community Team Posted: February 15, 2012 3:42 PM Last Updated: February 15, 2012 3:42 PM

Categories: Canada, Community, Politics

TD Bank chief economist Don Drummond recommends Ontario make hundreds of cuts to keep its spending in check. (Chris Young/Canadian Press)TD Bank chief economist Don Drummond released his much anticipated report Wednesday, detailing a number of extensive spending cuts that could help Ontario avoid a $30-billion deficit by 2017-18.

Drummond warns that failing to follow such severe austerity measures could cause Ontario's debt, which currently stands at $215 billion, to balloon to more than $411 billion in five years.

He made hundreds of recommendations in the 540-page report, including:

  • Moving more patients away from hospital care to cheaper forms of health care such as nurse practitioners and personal support workers instead of doctors.
  • Increasing school class sizes, cutting non-teaching positions and subjecting school bus service to user fees or opening it to competitive bids.
  • Capping annual spending increases for education at one per cent, rather than three to five per cent annually.
  • Holding the Ontario Child Benefit at $1,100 per child, per year, instead of allowing it to rise to the $1,310 called for in the 2011 budget.
  • Expanding LCBO locations.
  • Folding the two head offices of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation into one while closing one of two casinos in Niagara Falls.
  • Tightening controls over public-sector wages.
  • Eliminating all-day kindergarten.
  • Curtailing the underground economy.

The Ontario government has already indicated it isn't obligated to adopt all of Drummond's recommendations.

Drummond said the moves are "necessary if Ontario is to escape its recent history of rising public debt that forces the government to spend more than it should on interest payments."
He also admits the cuts will be painful.

Where would you like to see cuts to Ontario's spending? Would you focus them all in one area, or instead make cuts across the board? Share your ideas in the field below.


(This survey is not scientific. Results are based on readers' responses.)

Tags: POV