The Annual Post-Budget Address

Head Table Guests

Catherine Steele, President, The Empire Club of Canada and Vice-President, Public Affairs and Corporate Communications, Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.; Anthony S. Fell, Chairman, RBC Dominion Securities Inc.; Susan A. Murray, CEO, SAMCI; John C. Koopman, Third Vice-President, The Empire Club of Canada and Principal, Heidrick & Struggles; The Hon. William G. Davis, P.C., C.C., Q.C., Counsel, Torys; Isabel Bassett, Chair and CEO, TV Ontario and Honorary Life Director, The Canadian Club of Toronto; The Hon. Michael H. Wilson, PC, Vice-Chairman, RBC Dominion Securities Inc. and Director, The Canadian Club of Toronto; Joyce Gordon, Executive Director, The Osteoporosis Society of Canada; Henry F. Man, CEO, Concord Adex Developments and Director, The Canadian Club of Toronto; and The Reverend Canon John Erb, Executive Director, The Anglican Foundation of Canada and Director, The Canadian Club of Toronto.

Ernie Eves

It was only five years ago that I stood before you following my first budget. Perhaps you remember that budget speech. The Premier certainly does. It was just slightly shorter than the Jerry Lewis telethon and I remember the Opposition phoning in pledges to get me to sit down.

Yesterday I introduced my fifth budget as Minister of Finance. It was a little shorter. And if you don't know what was in it, simply check next year's income tax return. We balanced the budget. The critics said to us that we could not cut taxes, eliminate the deficit, put more money into education and health care and create 725,000 new jobs in the Province of Ontario at the same time. They said that we might as well try to walk on water. I was in my riding last weekend, but I didn't have the guts to try that.

Balancing the budget is the right thing to do, but finding the right balance is equally as important. Yesterday I talked about how all the numbers balance. Today I want to talk about how those dollars and cents translate into human terms.

Let us think not merely in terms of the value of money--columns and figures, decimals and statistics but in terms of human values--people and development. Those were the words of Lesley Frost. And those are the benchmarks by which our government measures progress in the Province of Ontario.

The process leading up to this year's budget has given me cause to reflect upon my very first fiscal statement July 21, 1995--and how far we have come since that day when we were agonising over cutting spending by $2 billion, a quarter of the way into the fiscal year, and we were looking at a deficit of $11.3 billion. They were very difficult days and there were many sleepless nights and many long discussions with the Premier about those agonising decisions. But the key was to try to find the right balance. The fiscal reality was one thing. Putting a human face on the numbers was quite something else.

The last time the Ontario budget was balanced for two consecutive fiscal years, as I said yesterday, was 1942-43 and 1943-44. That is some time ago. It was during the Second World War when Mackenzie King was prime minister consulting goats and his dog. It is not too different today. We have a prime minister consulting with non-existent homeless people and four out of five people living in Ontario were not even born. Casablanca, as I mentioned yesterday, won the Academy Award for film of the year.

We have had to make some tough decisions to get to this point. We have done what we have had to do to get 701,000 people working. They wanted to work in 1995 and did not have a job--the dignity of a job. There were almost half a million people on welfare who wanted to be full contributing members of our society and today they are.

I've heard some criticism in the media about the homeless and public housing and how there was nothing in this budget for them. Well not everything that you mention of course in a budgetary process is in the speaking text. But this year, as in previous years, we will be spending over $2 billion on the homeless and public housing in the Province of Ontario. We will be spending another $3.7 billion on social assistance for the less fortunate in our society. And last year we took the $100 million a year that was saved in terms of refinancing public housing in the Province of Ontario and dedicated it to the homeless as well. In addition we set up an emergency $56-million programme for municipalities to produce emergency shelters in the winter months. Maybe that's not enough of a commitment for some people but I think it's a fairly substantial commitment to the less fortunate in Ontario's society.

I was Minister of Community and Social Services in 1985 and those of you who know me know that I have a record of working for disadvantaged people. I have done that all my life. My mentor, my former law partner in Parry Sound, Bill Green, was a well renowned small-l and large-L Liberal. He did a lot of work for disadvantaged people and people in the native community. His wife Beth did a lot of work for the Children's Aid Society when she was the Associate Director.

You don't have to be a socialist to have a social conscience. But you do have to have the financial means to be able to help. I think that's why I entered public life and I think that's why anybody enters public life regardless of his or her political affiliation. That's what it means to me to be a Conservative--a fiscally responsible individual with a large social conscience. I've had the opportunity these past five years to use some of my own personal experiences in life to make changes that matter most to the people of the Province of Ontario.

Special Education and Early Years funding are two pet projects of mine. In yesterday's budget you saw $70 million in remedial programmes for students primarily in the early years from JK to grade 3. We are the government, some forget, who stopped the growth in class size a few years ago and now we are beginning to reduce class size province-wide. And we're starting in the right place--in the primary years. A hundred and forty million dollars more a year is to be spent on special education. This is on top of the $1.2 billion that we're already spending. We are the first government that has made sure that boards of education actually spend that money on special education as opposed to robbing special education funding to fund other programmes.

Personal experience plays a part here. My son Justin was learning-disabled. I know about his struggles through the elementary and secondary levels of education. I also know that there wasn't one single post-secondary institution in this province that had any real education programme for learning-disabled people after you graduated from high school. Justin was fortunate enough to have parents who could afford to send him to a university in Boston that did have such a programme and had a track record of doing this for 60 years. I know that in spite of all the great things we'd done for public education here in the Province of Ontario, we were 60 years behind the times in terms of special education. We addressed that need in one of my very first budgets and I asked The Honourable Dr. Betty Stephenson to chair that task force which she still does. I'm proud to say that today we have both colleges and universities across this province starting to provide those programmes for the 10 per cent of our student population with learning disabilities. And in yesterday's budget we took Betty's advice again and earmarked some $4 million to identify francophone learning-disabled students across this province because there was nothing in place to help them.

We also took a further step to address the medical requirements of special needs students and we extended it to all denominational schools. It started with another personal experience, a conference call with Frank Diamond of B'nai Brith, Larry Tanenbaum, Isabel Bassett and Charles Harnick. The commitment was finally made and we delivered on that commitment yesterday. It is the fair and equitable thing to do. It is the right thing to do.

Children have always been an important part of my life. In pre-budgetary consultations with June Callwood she and I had an opportunity to chat on several occasions about child poverty, child neglect and abuse. June challenged us and me to take a leadership position. And we are going to respond with a $50-million challenge to the federal government. We will earmark $50 million to help children under seven years of age in single-parent families. This will give each one of these children an additional $210 a year. This is on top of the $1,100 we gave them a year or two ago. f think it is a significant step in the right direction if the federal government will do as much as we're doing. These young people can be helped even more. This isn't a tax credit; it's not a deduction; it's a cheque.

We are committed to help single parents with disabled children at home who, through no fault of their own, are unable to go out and find employment.

We earmarked $5 million for the Prevention and Intravention programme to identify children at risk of abuse at home. I know a little bit about that as well. When my son Justin was at university in Boston he became, relatively speaking I guess, a big brother to two young black children from downtown Boston. One was five and one was three when the teacher of the older one recognised that they were coming to school rather dishevelled day after day and without lunch. Finally, after some three months, they found out that these two young boys had been living by themselves and that their mother, who was a drug addict, had left and was subsequently charged with murder and went to jail. Justin acted as a big brother to these two young gentlemen, who are still part of our extended family and with whom we still keep in constant contact.

Child prostitution. We've addressed that need as June asked us to do with $2 million a year in funding and $6 million for disadvantaged youth to get them involved in sporting activities to give them a meaning and a purpose in life. We've increased child nutrition programmes in schools with the Canadian Living Foundation. We've provided an early intervention Children Witnessing Domestic Violence programme. And we've topped up by $10 million our additional support for women and children in shelters, $5 million for infant hearing recognition and $6 million to expand neonatal level II training in hospitals in the GTA.

Reforming the health-care system. This year we'll be spending some $22 billion on health care in the Province of Ontario. We will reach our target of $22.7 billion, that we set last year, about two and a half to three years ahead of schedule. Some people say that this is not enough and perhaps it isn't.

But just as important, we are reforming the system. Primary-care reform is pivotal to the vision of health care in the future. We want an accessible integrated dependable system providing comprehensive care to patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Ontario is at the forefront of that reform and it is our goal working co-operatively with Ontario physicians to have 80 per cent of eligible family doctors practising in primary-care networks over the next four years.

Since 1995, the Ministry of Health has set up primary care projects in seven communities, again with the collaboration and the assistance of the Ontario Medical Association. We announced yesterday that we will start with a $100-million incentive fund to GPs to move to a network system.

We are spending $150 million on top of that next year to provide for new information systems to support the transition to primary care. We will enhance patient care by an additional $110 million for improved medical supervision in home-care settings and in psychiatric services. We will increase annual funding by $54 million for priority programmes such as cancer care and cardiac care. We are establishing a $180-million system management fund and providing $75 million to transfer doctors in the academic health sciences centres to alternate payment plans.

In July of 1999 our government opened the telephone health advisory service for Northern Ontario. This tollfree tele-health service gives callers access to experienced triage nurses who provide health-care advice, information and referrals. We are now expanding this very valuable service to the entire GTA and eventually to every single community across this province. We are taking action to increase access to physician services especially in rural communities. We are providing free tuition to medical students willing to practise in rural and northern areas following graduation and we will endeavour to work with communities to assist physician recruitment in under-serviced areas.

Infrastructure. I've heard a little bit about the mayor's concern about infrastructure. I don't know how much plainer I could've been in my text. There is $1 billion being set aside in a Superbuild Millennium Fund for infrastructure environmental projects and things that large urban centres across this province consider necessary. There's $300 million in a Sports Culture and Tourism Fund to be accessed by all citizens of the Province of Ontario. There is $600 million in a Small Town and Rural Development Fund so that all those communities across the province can have access to the same things that those in large urban communities do. And there's $300 million to double the size of the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund.

I said yesterday: ""We are also signalling today that in response to the innovative and exciting fund report the Ontario government is ready, willing and able to do our part to revitalise Toronto's waterfront and to make Toronto's 2008 Olympic bid a resounding success."" I think that's fairly clear. We will be there. Our money is on the table. I'm waiting to see where the commitment from the municipality and the federal government is and I'm not saying this in a controversial manner. I fully believe that this is an opportunity to revitalise the downtown waterfront of the greatest city in Canada, probably, I think, the greatest city in the world. We have that opportunity; we must seize that opportunity, seize the moment and get on with the job.

Post-secondary education. In the last few months we have set aside provincial government money which adds up to $1.8 billion for private-sector partners to do 54 capital projects across the Province of Ontario, creating an additional 73,000 student spaces so that every qualified student has the ability to attend post-secondary institutions.

We have tripled the Innovation Trust Fund adding $500 million to an existing $250-million base.

We have doubled the Research and Development Challenge Fund from $50 million to $100 million a year so we can embark upon cancer research and eliminate breast and prostate cancer. Scientists have told me that this is not too far away. If we can only develop our concerted approach, a co-operative approach, we have the ability to do that, ladies and gentlemen, right here on University Avenue, one of the greatest medical research areas in the entire world. We can make a difference to stroke victims. Thirty million dollars have been set aside for the Canadian Stroke Strategy. There's probably almost nobody in this room who hasn't been touched by death or disability as a result of stroke, myself included. We added a performance-based funding yesterday--grants for colleges and universities that take part in research and that make a difference. That was a special request by Robert Pritchard and others and one that makes sense to me.

I think we've brought accountability into the system. I think that is what government is all about. There is only one taxpayer, ladies and gentlemen. We have built the foundation I believe for a very bright future where consecutive balanced budgets will become the norm, not the exception.

We've brought about what some call radical changes to Ontario. I will leave for others to determine how radical these changes really are. I'm not so sure how radical an idea balancing the budget really is. Most of you would probably call it common sense. I'm not sure how radical an idea it is that a child in Red Lake should have the same opportunity to a quality education as a child in Rosedale or that both families have a report card that they can understand and realistically assess their child's progress. I'm not sure how radical it is to want to restructure a health-care system that is servicing a growing population that is living longer. They want to be treated at home, instead of waiting in an antiquated hospital quarter built in the 1950s. I'm not sure how radical it is to simply want and expect safe communities for our families and for our children.

Maybe some of you don't share all the views that I've expressed today. Maybe some of you wish your taxes were going up, not down, that you had more forms to fill out and more red tape to decipher, as you try to grow and expand your businesses, but somehow I don't think so.

I'm very proud of what we have accomplished as a government here in the Province of Ontario. I am proud to say that the income tax cuts we have introduced have paid real dividends in terms of a strong economy and jobs. But in the end it is the working women and men of this province who really deserve the credit for that remarkable turnaround over the last five years.

I concluded the budget yesterday with the announcement of a taxpayer dividend, a matter of some small controversy I see today. I don't think there is anything strange about returning $1 billion to the Ontario taxpayer in the form of a tax rebate of up to $200 each. It has been criticised by some, but I think what differentiates our government from others is that we understand that that is not our money. That is your money. You earned it. And all we're interested in doing is returning some of your own money to you. It is a form of an additional tax reduction. It will certainly help those at the more modest end of the income scale more than it will those at the upper end of the income scale. But I think for once and for all we have to get out of our heads that government is there to hurt you, to steal some of your money, to take more of your money. You are the one who earns it. It's yours. If you don't want the $200 you can donate it to the charity of your choice. You spend it or invest it the way you want. And help whom you want.

You elected us to spend your money wisely, cautiously, and with prudence. I think we have done that. A modern budget is not simply a bookkeeping statement or a testimony to fiscal management. It is a deliberate instrument of social and economic guidance. It is part of the very fabric of our society and our economy. I think that when you have cause to reflect upon the last five years and yesterday's budget you will come to conclude the same thing that I have--balanced budgets do indeed mean brighter futures for all Ontarians. Thank you very much.

The appreciation of the meeting was expressed by Catherine Steele, President, The Empire Club of Canada and Vice-President, Public Affairs and Corporate Communications, Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.