Ford ushers in Revolution 2.0

Torontosun.com
March 4, 2019
Antonella Artuso

There’s a revolution underway.

There’s no publicly-available road map like with the Common Sense Revolution, and it’s all a bit of a blur from the news cycle, but the Doug Ford government is rapidly reversing course on the last 15 years of Liberal rule with the potential for great gains and disasters.

So what’s the rush for Revolution 2.0?

Tory MPP Stephen Lecce said his party was given a mandate during the last year’s provincial election to set the fiscal house in order and preserve public services for the long-term.

“It is a whole government effort, going from the top down, the Premier leading by example, across the cabinet, across the caucus,” Lecce said. “We had to act quickly and decisively to put our province back on a pathway to prosperity. I’m proud that the Premier did not idle. This man right out of the gate got to work.”

There were all the things that the party promised during the campaign -- the end of cap-and-trade and the York University strike -- but there’s much more.

Profound changes have come or on the way for multiple government files, including autism services, health care, post secondary student support and education.

York University strike and picket lines with members stopping cars and drivers to explain what the strike is about on Thursday March 8, 2018. Jack Boland/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network Jack Boland / Jack Boland/Toronto Sun

“The people knew what they were getting with Doug Ford,” Lecce said. “They knew they were getting a man that would be resolute, that would act quickly and that would ultimately refocus the province on priorities that people care about.”

The government appears focused not just on eliminating the stubborn operating deficit, but also beginning to whittle away at the epic $323 billion debt. No principle has been paid down on that in almost 20 years.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Ontarians were clearly unhappy with the former Liberal government.
“But I don’t recall anybody saying that they wanted to have their health care system turned upside down with great potential risks for both privatization and for such upheaval that people will be put at risk in terms of their access to service,” she said. “I don’t recall anybody voting for the attack on students, for example, changing the student grants back into loans and hiking up the interest rates in terms of amount of time young people have to pay back their loans.”

“I think that families were saying that they were having a hard time making ends meet and they wanted things to be more affordable,” she said.

The Conservative priorities are smaller government, fewer services, smaller deficit or deficit reduction but that benefits the party’s wealthy supporters, not average families, she said.

The Tories counter that the word to best describe what public services will become is sustainable, and that without this change they simply won’t be.

NOT SMALL CHANGE

AUTISM SERVICES

Change: Currently, government pays for therapy but 23,000 kids on wait list. As of April 1, each family can receive maximum of $140,000 -- up to $20,000 a year until age six, $5,000 a year until 18. Claw back on sliding scale from $55,000 to $250,000 a year in annual family income.

Children, Community and Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod:

“We are committed to ensuring that we bring in parental empowerment and direct choice for families to clear the wait-list of the 23,000 children who have been languishing. It’s not right that three out of four children in the province of Ontario with autism were denied support by their previous Liberal government.”

Did you model this after B.C.’s autism program?

“In addition to consultations with families, the ministry reviewed 14 social services jurisdictions in North America, Australia, Asia, and Europe. Five jurisdictions provided the most influential learnings. These programs were from Saskatchewan, B.C., Australia, the UK and the Netherlands. Family budgets are becoming more common in human and social services delivery to create a family-centred approach with choice and control for families and competition among providers. Both British Columbia and Saskatchewan have implemented family budget models for their autism programs, where families receive an annual fixed amount of funding to purchase eligible services.”

Ontario Autism Coalition President Laura Kirby-McIntosh:

“What they’ve brought in is infinitely worse because at least in B.C. part of their model is once your kid’s over six your funding drops but the supports in schools are far better. There’s no indication that there’s any collaboration going on between Lisa MacLeod’s ministry and the Ministry of Education.”

Amara LeBlanc and friend Kevin Maillot sit in a stroller while their parents protest outside MPP Lisa MacLeod’s Barrhaven, Ont. constituency office after recently-announced changes made to funding treatment programs for autistic children. Julie Oliver / Postmedia Network

HEALTH CARE

Change: A super agency called Ontario Health will absorb Cancer Care Ontario, Health Quality Ontario, eHealth Ontario, Trillium Gift of Life Network, Health Shared Services Ontario, HealthForce Ontario Marketing and Recruitment Agency and LHINs just to start. Create Ontario Health Teams to connect health care providers and services around patients.

Health Minister Christine Elliott: “Well, things are going to be different. The reason why we are going through this transformative change is for patients. It’s for patients, families and their caregivers, to make sure they get the coordinated care that they need. They’re not getting that now. Our system is fragmented.”

Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, announces the Government of Ontario’s plan for long-term health care system at Bridgepoint Active Healthcare in Toronto on Tuesday, February 26, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Tijana Martin

Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO) CEO Doris Grinspun: “I do not share the concern that merging (the agencies) and basically dissolving the LHINs and bringing all of that expertise to the Agency is necessarily a bad thing. Because if it’s done well -- that is the issue -- conceptually it actually makes sense. Operationally, it needs to be managed well so we simply don’t end up with another change that has produced very little. If we create linkages at the macro level, it will create efficiencies because you won’t have these organizations that have ballooned. Those efficiencies should go to direct care in primary care, and then you will start to move the system.”