Duncan vows to continue uploading costs from cities
Social-services plan stays in place, he says
The Ontario government will continue to upload social services from municipalities despite the budget crunch, says Finance Minister Dwight Duncan. Asked Tuesday if the minority Liberal administration would be forced to download some services to local governments to pay down a $16 billion deficit, Duncan said: “Definitely not.” “We’ve already told municipalities that we will continue the upload,” he said. The Liberals are gradually uploading social services from city budgets to reverse downloading that began under the previous Progressive Conservative administration. If the trend continues, Ontario municipalities would save some $1.5 billion a year by 2018. While Duncan was vague about what would be in the provincial budget — expected to be tabled before the federal plan March 29 — he emphasized that nothing would change on the upload. “There will be other things that affect municipalities indirectly . . . not to a huge extent,” the treasurer said, declining to elaborate. Duncan did have some choice words on federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s criticism Monday of Ontario’s daunting fiscal situation. “That’s like the pot calling the kettle black. He’s got a record deficit in Canada, a record debt-to-gdp,” he said of Flaherty. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said she was “hopeful” the Liberals would maintain the uploading.
“It’s not only whether they’re going to download, it’s whether they’re going to continue the pace of uploading that the Conservatives had downloaded,” said Horwath.
With the minority Liberals needing either NDP or Tory MPPS to support the budget for it to pass in the Legislature, Horwath said her party was taking a “wait and see approach.” Tory MPP Peter Shurman (Thornhill) accused Duncan of making up budget policy as he goes along.
“I can’t follow this finance minister from one day to the next,” said Shurman.
“The finance minister throws whatever he wants out there and sees who salutes and then decides on what his policy is going to be, so I have no comment on it.”