Wynne, Leal discuss local budget concerns

Premier Kathleen Wynne made the rounds, so to speak, of newsrooms around the province Friday, calling editors to talk about the budget delivered Thursday in one-on-one telephone interviews.

With 10 minutes allotted, The Examiner chose to focus on two big concerns raised locally, both by readers and by opposition politicians, over the 24 hours since the budget was released: No new long-term-care beds for Peterborough city and county, and what was at first seen by many as no new funding for agriculture.

MPP Jeff Leal called this budget “tailor-made for Peterborough.” MPP Laurie Scott, the PC member for neighbouring Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock, who also serves as her party’s unofficial Peterborough critic, said she won’t support it because of those issues and others.

Wynne said the province isn’t overlooking the need for long-term care beds in Peterborough and area, where hundreds if not thousands of seniors are on waiting lists.

“Long-term care and seniors are very much on our radar,” she said, explaining that the province has taken a big-picture, $53.8-billion approach to health, calling it “the continuum of care.”

In this budget, that means $58 million for long-term care homes, a two per cent increase over last year. There’s also a six per cent increase in food allowance funding to improve the quality of food served in long-term care facilities.

The budget also includes $100 million over three years in funding for dementia care strategies.

“There hasn’t been a discussion about health care in this province that doesn’t involve long-term care,” Wynne said.

This could involve models beyond long-term-care facilities, she said – assisted living, home care, other approaches, noting that not everybody on those waiting lists really belongs in a long-term-care facility.

“(We would look at) different models of home, different situations including extended home care,” she said. “Can we do that without (adding) long-term care beds? It’s a really important challenge.”

That being said, Wynne added, the province plans to rebuild or renovate 33,000 long-term-care beds by 2025, and new long-term-care beds will be added – just not in Peterborough, not this year.

Agriculture-wise, Wynne told The Examiner that recent one-time funding for rural agriculture, including $19 million for the Greenhouse Competiveness and Innovation Initiative, $50 million towards a farm robotics plan and $130 million (over five years) for wireless farm tech programs weren’t part of the budget, but go a long way to addressing the future of farming in Ontario.

And, as noted Thursday in the budget presentation, a reduction in electricity costs this summer will benefit farmers.

“Your local member (Leal) is very much an advocate for agriculture,” she said, something Scott noted when she reminded readers that Leal, the minister of agriculture and rural affairs, once said getting others in the Legislature to listen has been a challenge.

Wynne said that doesn’t apply to her: “I’ve been a provincial minister of agriculture. I’m very much attuned to the issues he brings forward for rural farmers.”

This conversation prompted a phone call soon after from Leal, who explained that the idea that his ministry took a financial hit is a mistake. His budget in 2016-17 was $916 million, he noted, but there were unforseen additional expenses, including the aforementioned greenhouse program, $3 million for a corn-fed beef initiative and the big one, $38 million in ministry insurance payouts to farmers affected by last summer’s drought. The extras increased the ministry’s budget on an interim basis to $971 million.

So his ministry’s 2017-18 budget, $949 million, seems like a reduction, but that’s because of those other factors - and it could happen again, Leal said.

“I can’t control the weather - we could have another drought, or hail. But I have to be there for our farmers.”