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Premier Doug Ford's Ontario

Province will not renew $1M in funding to cut waitlists at rape crisis centres

"For the people..." who haven't been raped.

From link.

Two weeks before International Women’s Day, a network of sexual assault centres across Ontario received news that additional funding provided by the PC government to help reduce waitlists for counselling services will not be renewed.

The $1 million one-time funding was promised by the Ford government ahead of the 2019 budget in order to deal with the backlog of survivors and victims who required counselling and support services.

“It was meant to mitigate wait times for counselling services at sexual assault centres across Ontario,” said Nicole Pietsch, an advocate with the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres (OCRCC). “We are back to where we were in the beginning of 2018.”

The provincial government provides funding to sexual assault centres through their victim services programs. Pietsch said that the former Liberal government promised to increase funding to those programs, but instead the funding was kept the same in 2019 under the Progressive Conservatives.

“That’s when the $1 million was provided to these centres. Not what we were asking for, but it was an increase in recognition of the service demand.”

The one-time funding was divided among sexual assault centres across the province and used in a variety of ways. According to the OCRCC, wait times for counselling was reduced at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre by about a year—from 18 months to six months. Four survivor support groups were also formed that helped 48 survivors of sexual violence.

In Kingston, the funding allowed the local sexual assault centre to provide individual counselling to an additional 40 people. Wait times were also reduced from eight weeks to two weeks. In Halton, wait times have been reduced from 10 months to five months.

Additional part-time counsellors were hired in Timmins and the Kawartha Lakes.

The OCRCC says that without the renewed funding, those staff may not be able to stay and wait times for counselling will increase.

“There continues to be no investment in the reality that more survivors of sexual violence are accessing services than ever before,” Pietsch said.

“We won’t stop talking about this because it’s not about the service agencies and their pressures. What’s important to us is that when more survivors are reaching out for support, it’s responsible for us to be there to respond to that.”

The Ministry of the Attorney General provided about $60.2 million in funding to 15 victim services programs for victims of all types of crimes last year. That funding is divided between 214 agencies across the province.

"Last year we announced the one-time funding increase of $1 million was added to annual funding of $14.8 million to support sexual assault centres in the wake of the unfunded promises made by the Liberals," ministry spokesperson Jenessa Crognali said in a statement.

"Victim service organizations across Ontario do important and valuable work in their communities. Our government will continue to engage with these important partners make it easier for victims of crime and their families to get the help they need when and where they need it".

Crognali added that the government will be maintaining "the same funding guarantee" for victim services programs in 2020-21.

Jill Andrew, the women’s issues critic with the Ontario New Democratic Party, described the province's decision to eliminate the additional funding as a “cruel cut.”

“Doug Ford is making a cruel cut to funding that helps rape crisis centres support survivors with services like free counselling when we know the need is only growing,” Andrew said. “I am urging the government to reverse this cut right away, because survivors deserve better than to be left on their own, waiting month after agonizing month to access supports following unthinkable trauma.”

The OCRCC says that it has taken more than 50,000 crisis line calls and supported more than 17,000 survivors of sexual violence in one year.
Click to expand...
 
Interesting- let's hope Ford won't dump this onto a tax cut and focus instead on balancing the budget. If he manages to balance the budget ahead of the next election, it would be a major feather in his hat.

On the other hand, the economics in Canada are out of wack, with relatively lower wages and a rising COL in the major cities- a tax cut may outrage policy wonks and be bad for the province's long-term financial health, but might be popular with the public (who see it as "the government is finally doing something!").

What a difference 1 per cent makes: Ontario’s finances now sustainable, budget watchdog says
ANALYSIS: The Parliamentary Budget Office has released a report on the fiscal sustainability of Canada and the provinces — and it’s got big news for Ontario
By John Michael McGrath - Published on Mar 04, 2020
Click to expand...

Two years ago, the federal Parliamentary Budget Office released a report on the fiscal sustainability of the Canadian government, as well as of the territories and provinces. The news wasn’t good for Ontario: it had a “fiscal gap” of 0.9 per cent of GDP, meaning that the government needed to either raise taxes or cut spending by that much — 1 per cent of GDP amounts to $7 billion or so — to bring the province’s long-term spending into balance.

Well, it’s two years later, the PBO has updated its spreadsheets with new data, and things have turned around significantly: according to the 2020 Fiscal Sustainability Report, Ontario’s fiscal gap is much smaller — only 0.1 per cent of GDP. Much more important, it’s a “negative gap.” Put it another way: if Ontario had to raise taxes or cut spending in 2018, it now has a little room to cut taxes or increase spending, according to the methodology of the PBO’s report.
Click to expand...
A 1 per cent change in direction may sound underwhelming, but the effects are profound. The whole point of the PBO’s sustainability reports is to give governments a form of long-term guidance by projecting today’s policies forward in time to see what the results would be. The PBO’s projections end in the 2090s, and a small change in the present magnifies over decades.

This is clear in the PBO’s projections for provincial debt. In the 2018 report, Ontario’s debt was projected to increase relentlessly, reaching 127 per cent of GDP by 2092. The new projection shows Ontario’s debt-to-GDP ratio now dropping in coming decades before, by the 2090s, starting to grow again slightly to 22 per cent — or a third less than the current level.
Click to expand...
This all needs to be read with caution, of course. The projections are necessarily limited by what they’re intending to do: PBO staff aren’t trying to make realistic projections about which political parties will win elections over the next century and what those governments will do; instead, they’re simply taking today’s status quo and explaining — using a handful of broadly predictable variables, such as Ontario’s aging population and the health-care spending that will require — what that would mean going forward.

One notable question that the PBO’s report leaves unanswered relates to some tax cuts the PCs announced but have not yet implemented — including a cut to the gasoline tax the Tories promised in their 2018 election platform but haven’t yet moved forward on. From the PBO’s perspective, the government has room for some small tax cuts or spending increases, and obviously any government would prefer to be running for re-election saying it’s kept its promises.
Click to expand...
www.tvo.org

What a difference 1 per cent makes: Ontario’s finances now sustainable, budget watchdog says | TVO.org

ANALYSIS: The Parliamentary Budget Office has released a report on the fiscal sustainability of Canada and the provinces — and it’s got big news for Ontario.
www.tvo.org www.tvo.org
 
Premier Doug Ford vows to keep election campaign promise to cut hydro rates by 12 per cent.

The premier says details of the government’s new plan will be announced in the coming weeks.

The government had budgeted $4-billion for the 2019-2020 fiscal year to keep hydro prices stable.

But in January, the province’s finance minister said the government had spent an additional $1.6-billion to achieve that goal.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/can...pid=rss&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
 
Bwhahahahahaha

NEW: Premier Doug Ford’s @OntarioPCParty government is abandoning the defective double-blue licence plates in favour of a rejigged white design, the @TorontoStar has learned.

The Star has learned that a new white design will be unveiled within days to replace the government’s flawed Tory-blue plates that are illegible in some lighting conditions.

That means the revamped plate will more closely resemble the traditional white design in place since 1973, though they will not have the raised letters and numbers that are prone to peeling.

The new white plate will use the slogan, “A Place To Grow,” introduced with the blue plate instead of the current “Yours To Discover.”

https://www.thestar.com/politics/pr...ence-plates-and-return-to-a-white-design.html
 
tiffer24 said:
Bwhahahahahaha

NEW: Premier Doug Ford’s @OntarioPCParty government is abandoning the defective double-blue licence plates in favour of a rejigged white design, the @TorontoStar has learned.

The Star has learned that a new white design will be unveiled within days to replace the government’s flawed Tory-blue plates that are illegible in some lighting conditions.

That means the revamped plate will more closely resemble the traditional white design in place since 1973, though they will not have the raised letters and numbers that are prone to peeling.

The new white plate will use the slogan, “A Place To Grow,” introduced with the blue plate instead of the current “Yours To Discover.”

https://www.thestar.com/politics/pr...ence-plates-and-return-to-a-white-design.html
Click to expand...

I remember back in the days when we had to get a physical new license plate each year that they switched the colours from white letters on blue plates to blue letters on white plates, and back and forth each year. They must have settled on the one set of colours from experience over the years, when they adapted the corner yearly sticker.
 
W. K. Lis said:
I remember back in the days when we had to get a physical new license plate each year that they switched the colours from white letters on blue plates to blue letters on white plates, and back and forth each year. They must have settled on the one set of colours from experience over the years, when they adapted the corner yearly sticker.
Click to expand...
Ford does not belueve in science, experts or past experience. He operates 100% on gut feelng and these constanf f××× ups are the result. There are, a few, sensible Tories but they seem to have given up. Del Duca is certainly not my choice but he looks better by the day.
 
DSC said:
Ford does not belueve in science, experts or past experience. He operates 100% on gut feelng and these constanf f××× ups are the result. There are, a few, sensible Tories but they seem to have given up. Del Duca is certainly not my choice but he looks better by the day.
Click to expand...

While Doug Ford does not the education background most politicians have, he does have a "business" background. Unfortunately, it is very limited authoritarian family business background, where he was "given" his positions there based on nepotism not merit.
 
DSC said:
Ford does not belueve in science, experts or past experience. He operates 100% on gut feelng and these constanf f××× ups are the result. There are, a few, sensible Tories but they seem to have given up. Del Duca is certainly not my choice but he looks better by the day.
Click to expand...
Meh, the Liberals did so as well- there were many times when they went with what was politically convenient as opposed to what was suggested by advisors (i.e. on Green Energy, transit and finances). They are by no means the sleep-easy ethical choice here, though they may present themselves as such.

And did you forget about the whole Scarborough Subway debacle, and how easily the Liberals rolled with that because 'Scarborough deserved subways' (aka they wanted to keep their Scarborough seats)?

Honestly the NDP ought to just find an old-school social democratic leader who's all big on the economy and the working-class, and just roll with that.
 
Last edited:
Last months jobs report had Quebec creating 20k jobs, Alberta 10k, and the rest basically 0.
Ontario lost 3k.
I've often been accused of only posting news when it's good for the PC's, so I will post this after bad provincial data comes out.
Despite all the small mistakes Ford has made, he is getting the big things right.


1583628865329.png
 
BurlOak said:
Last months jobs report had Quebec creating 20k jobs, Alberta 10k, and the rest basically 0.
Ontario lost 3k.
I've often been accused of only posting news when it's good for the PC's, so I will post this after bad provincial data comes out.
Despite all the small mistakes Ford has made, he is getting the big things right.


View attachment 235115
Click to expand...

Bob Rae had to fight a recession (1990-1991). McGunity had a big recession in 2008-2009. COVID-19 may result in another recession. With Doug Ford in charge, we could have a problem.
 
W. K. Lis said:
Bob Rae had to fight a recession (1990-1991). McGunity had a big recession in 2008-2009. COVID-19 may result in another recession. With Doug Ford in charge, we could have a problem.
Click to expand...
That's why I compare like to like. I don't compare Bob Rae in his economic climate with the economic climate under Peterson or Harris. I compared Ontario to it's closest neighbours (which are the other provinces), in the same time period, to ensure that the comparison is to jurisdictions that had the same economic conditions.
 
tiffer24 said:
Bwhahahahahaha

NEW: Premier Doug Ford’s @OntarioPCParty government is abandoning the defective double-blue licence plates in favour of a rejigged white design, the @TorontoStar has learned.

The Star has learned that a new white design will be unveiled within days to replace the government’s flawed Tory-blue plates that are illegible in some lighting conditions.

That means the revamped plate will more closely resemble the traditional white design in place since 1973, though they will not have the raised letters and numbers that are prone to peeling.

The new white plate will use the slogan, “A Place To Grow,” introduced with the blue plate instead of the current “Yours To Discover.”

https://www.thestar.com/politics/pr...ence-plates-and-return-to-a-white-design.html
Click to expand...

How does a Premier that's all about 'the little guy' and saving taxpayer money explain this kind of foolishness?

Figuring out a way to fix the peeling on raised lettering would've been a much better use of money. Good for visibility.
 
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