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Premier Doug Ford's Ontario

syn said:
Hmm...this all sounds so familiar...I just can't put my finger on it...

‘I will assure you that services will not be cut, guaranteed’
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On the health front, Ford said he’s assembled a team of health professionals — headed by Dr. Rueben Devlin, the former CEO of Humber River Hospital who was at the helm when his brother, Rob Ford, was being treated there for cancer — to look at the issue of improving wait times.
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Ho ho ho...

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/new...ce-vocal-critic-of-john-tory/article20572551/

Should we expect Ron Taverner to be drafted for state of policing in the province?

AoD
 
Ok, I'll bite......just for everyone's edification.......

So you found 6B in savings???

****

Ford Platform:

The proposed tax reduction appears to be 8B; reducing health care wait times, beyond what has been budgeted for by the Liberals will never cost less than 500M; more if you want really good (short) wait times.

Reducing Hydro Rates with around 11B in revenues between Hydro One and OPG, assuming the bulk of said revenue is from the customer base, a 10% reduction would be a hit of about 1.1B

So at a minimum you have a 9.6B in cost-pressure and a starting position of an 8B deficit it would seem.

So you're at 17.6B

If we deduct 6B in savings.............that gets us to an 11.6B deficit, give or take new revenues from economic growth - inflationary cost pressures.

Hmmmmm

Now, just for fun, let's try and save 6B.

It is do-able......

Let's merge the Catholic and Public School Boards, that will net about 1.5B per year; though there will be one-time costs of over 1B to achieve that.

We could thin out the number of hospitals and LHINS......though the savings rate is unlikely to be substantial; assuming a 2% savings on overhead is ambitious....

But I'll spot you 240M to be a good sport.

We could rationalize the number of Cities.......Amalgamate Windsor w/Lakeshore, Tecumseh etc.; Consolidate Niagara Region......but if you got 100M out of that annually you'd be doing well.

Let's suppose that you can Lean-Six-Sigma a bunch of government functions.....how about a 1% savings on 50% of program expenditure.

So, in the ballpark of 700M.

All in, I'm at about 2.5B per year.

Gonna have to sharpen the pencil...........

We could cut some green incentives; and some corporate welfare............

I'll spot you 500M.

We're 1/2 way home!

But wait......can't cut health or education beyond what I outline above..........I'm assuming........that's 47% of the budget while interest on the debt is 8.5%....so 55.5% is off limits....

Cut post-secondary? Social Assistance, together those are another 18% of the budget.....so that would be 73.5% off limits.

Jails are already overcrowded, can't cut that 3%.........so that's almost 77% off the table........

So that leaves cutting the remainder......about 30B odd by a full 10%. That's everything from Environment to French Language, Municipal Affairs, Transportation..........

Ugh....

And after all that we get to a deficit of 11.6B?
 
I think the Liberals should play up how little Doug worked while he was councillor. He missed the most council meetings outside of councillors who were sick.

I'd love to have someone ask him to prove he donated his salary like he said he did.

As far as transit goes, I think right now the Scarborough LRT is fully funded, Tory's 1 stop subway is planned and if Doug wins, will he pull funding for the 1 stop and approve it for 3 and name it the Rob Ford memorial subway?

I also agree with someone who posted earlier that he doesn't look physically well. He lost weight at one point but is quite heavy now and his hair has gone from blonde to white pretty quickly. I know it happens when you're at a certain age but I was quite surprised to see such a change in him.
 
Northern Light said:
We could thin out the number of hospitals and LHINS......though the savings rate is unlikely to be substantial; assuming a 2% savings on overhead is ambitious....
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That's a non-starter. Rural healthcare is already pretty thin and those are the only hospitals that are underutilized. Doing this might even be enough to cause MPPs like Lisa Thompson (Huron-Bruce) to become independents.
 
rbt said:
That's a non-starter. Rural healthcare is already pretty thin and those are the only hospitals that are underutilized. Doing this might even be enough to cause MPPs like Lisa Thompson (Huron-Bruce) to become independents.
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To be clear, my point was to show how difficult finding 6B really is; not to imply it was easy.

At that level though, I wasn't implying closing hospital campuses, but rather merging the administrative side.

Noting that saving of 2% of overhead is probably all that you would get out of such an exercise, which would not end up being a terribly exciting number.
 
MTown said:
Me not being able to afford to live here even though I grew up here is what's discriminatory.
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In what manner does opening up the GTA housing market to the world discriminate against you? By definition it discriminates against no one and as a Canadian resident/citizen you would surely enjoy better access to capital through CMHC and the like than a foreign buyer.

I agree as a citizen/taxpayer you should definitely be entitled to certain benefits though.
 
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LMVDR said:
In what manner does opening up the GTA housing market to the world discriminate against you? By definition it discriminates against no one and as a Canadian resident/citizen you would surely enjoy better access to capital through CMHC and the like than a foreign buyer.

I agree as a citizen/taxpayer you should definitely be entitled to certain benefits though.
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So you're in favour of helping ensure that foreign rich people can park their money in real estate in Toronto? Isn't housing for people that want to live and work here?

Also, are you implying that CMHC lends "capital" to individual private home buyers?
 
Am I the only one suspicious of the secret influence of @PinkLucy ; I mean, really, let's be clear here, no right thinking person expected Ford to win........but Lucy claimed to feel the need to join the PCs to defeat him. So the only person in Ontario who thought Dougie could win, who wasn't related to him or on his payroll joins the PCs......and voila......the projected 3rd place finisher is your winner.

Any UT regulars know the enormous power and influence Lucy wields.

This can surely only be the result of some subversive plot by her.

As the cynical rightly say.....keep an eye on the mods......

:p
 
Northern Light said:
Am I the only one suspicious of the secret influence of @PinkLucy ; I mean, really, let's be clear here, no right thinking person expected Ford to win........but Lucy claimed to feel the need to join the PCs to defeat him. So the only person in Ontario who thought Dougie could win, who wasn't related to him or on his payroll joins the PCs......and voila......the projected 3rd place finisher is your winner.

Any UT regulars know the enormous power and influence Lucy wields.

This can surely only be the result of some subversive plot by her.

As the cynical rightly say.....keep an eye on the mods......

:p
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She’s clearly a Russian plant
 
Cutting government spending, especially by $6B, by 'finding inefficiencies' and not cutting services or payroll is a quadrennial ruse perpetrated by every party, especially considering that 2/3 of expenditures are either stated as untouchable (health and education) or non-discretionary (debt interest). I began a 31 year career as a public servant in 1973 and first heard the term 'do more with less' in 1974. Roughly (very), salaries/wages and benefits account for approximately 70% of expenditures.

The very way that spending reduction occurs dooms it to failure. The edict goes out from Treasury Board to the various Ministers, whose staff not only supports the minister but also the mandate of the ministry. Staff there includes areas such as policy, communications, possibly HR, etc. and are fairly connected and high profile within the workings of the ministry (ever received a reply letter from a minister and naively thought they have actually even seen it? There's a department for that). They are not stupid - they are not going to fall on their sword for the good of the province and the Minister will claim that they are crucially important work of the ministry (read: him/her). So it flows downhill through decreasing levels of people able to protect themselves and their little empire until you end up with some poor worker in a field office in Blenheim, Chapleau or some such place - somebody actually at the pointy end of the ministry's stick - either getting 'surplussed' or ending up with no operating budget to do anything. During the major cut-backs and 'reorganization' of the Harris era, field offices of every ministry were closed or reduced all over the province but I didn't see an echoing vacant halls around Queen's Park. Some, like the MNRF, have been on life support for years. You know how your employer measures the significance of your duties when a key factor in your ability to go out and do it is whether you have enough gas in your truck, because there is no money for more until next month.

Another problem with cutting staff is there is no accompanying reduction or streamlining in the way the government does business, so the survivors of the purge become increasingly inefficient and demoralized. An astonishing percentage of government workers have nothing to do with the delivery of the various programs and services, but are only employed to keep the bloated bureaucracy going or to support broader government programs that have nothing to do with that particular ministry. Multiple levels of accountability have nothing to do with ensuring accountability at all and actually do the opposite. Minor studies, reports, or even things like expense accounts, are required to be parsed through many hands, ensuring that the owners of those hands remain gainfully employed and that their managers have a department to manage.

Can money be saved by streamlining the very way government operates? Sure. Can it save $6B? Not a chance, even with service and staff reductions. Can it save $6B through wholesale program elimination? Possibly. They might play the payroll shell game of contracting out staff and services to get them off the books, but it's still money spent, and the entire process of government spending is pretty much a shell game anyway.
 
lenaitch said:
Cutting government spending, especially by $6B, by 'finding inefficiencies' and not cutting services or payroll is a quadrennial ruse perpetrated by every party, especially considering that 2/3 of expenditures are either stated as untouchable (health and education) or non-discretionary (debt interest). I began a 31 year career as a public servant in 1973 and first heard the term 'do more with less' in 1974. Roughly (very), salaries/wages and benefits account for approximately 70% of expenditures.

The very way that spending reduction occurs dooms it to failure. The edict goes out from Treasury Board to the various Ministers, whose staff not only supports the minister but also the mandate of the ministry. Staff there includes areas such as policy, communications, possibly HR, etc. and are fairly connected and high profile within the workings of the ministry (ever received a reply letter from a minister and naively thought they have actually even seen it? There's a department for that). They are not stupid - they are not going to fall on their sword for the good of the province and the Minister will claim that they are crucially important work of the ministry (read: him/her). So it flows downhill through decreasing levels of people able to protect themselves and their little empire until you end up with some poor worker in a field office in Blenheim, Chapleau or some such place - somebody actually at the pointy end of the ministry's stick - either getting 'surplussed' or ending up with no operating budget to do anything. During the major cut-backs and 'reorganization' of the Harris era, field offices of every ministry were closed or reduced all over the province but I didn't see an echoing vacant halls around Queen's Park. Some, like the MNRF, have been on life support for years. You know how your employer measures the significance of your duties when a key factor in your ability to go out and do it is whether you have enough gas in your truck, because there is no money for more until next month.

Another problem with cutting staff is there is no accompanying reduction or streamlining in the way the government does business, so the survivors of the purge become increasingly inefficient and demoralized. An astonishing percentage of government workers have nothing to do with the delivery of the various programs and services, but are only employed to keep the bloated bureaucracy going or to support broader government programs that have nothing to do with that particular ministry. Multiple levels of accountability have nothing to do with ensuring accountability at all and actually do the opposite. Minor studies, reports, or even things like expense accounts, are required to be parsed through many hands, ensuring that the owners of those hands remain gainfully employed and that their managers have a department to manage.

Can money be saved by streamlining the very way government operates? Sure. Can it save $6B? Not a chance, even with service and staff reductions. Can it save $6B through wholesale program elimination? Possibly. They might play the payroll shell game of contracting out staff and services to get them off the books, but it's still money spent, and the entire process of government spending is pretty much a shell game anyway.
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Exceedingly well said!
 
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