Maybe there are those of us in Ontario who do not appreciate our premier for his uncaring ways. Did you know that he saves taxpayers money even when he really should have spent it? We got the word the other day. The independent Financial Accountability Office of Ontario told us how Doug Ford’s government had saved us $9 billion. And that was when we knew he needed to spend more.
It was when he first slipped into office that he cut the spending on autistic children. There were complaints about that. Nobody seemed to notice though when he reduced the funds for the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). It sure looks as though Doug doesn’t give a damn about those people.
It is so bad in Ontario that sociologists are now referring to the close to a half-million people on ODSP as our modern-era hunter gatherers. They are always out hunting for free food and the small change they can beg from citizens, or they have to steal. It is as though we are telling these unfortunate people to beg on the streets or to be criminals or starve.
But the real criminals today are the local health integration networks (LHINs). These people are so busy fighting for their jobs that they have no time left to do their jobs. They are taking it out on the hospital patients because of an uncaring government. Ontario had to budget for extra funds because of the pandemic and yet the Ministry of Health throttled back the funds and there is a billion dollars unspent—not because it was not needed—because it was held back by our conservative government.
After spending a month in hospital last year with a leg in a cast, you learn a lot about how hospital funding is being strangled. The hospitals had to close their kitchens and the catered food is awful. (I lost ten kilograms of body weight because I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.) They never had enough nurses to cover the shifts. (These are the same nurses whom the conservatives denied any wage increase.) The weekly surprise for hospital staff was what materials were not delivered to fill needs in looking after patients. No wonder, they had a billion left over!
And who suffers from this stingy, uncaring government? We all do.
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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry
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