Ontario will move ahead with some of its controversial municipal funding cuts for public health and child care next year, Premier Doug Ford is expected announce Monday at a gathering of municipal leaders in Ottawa.
The Progressive Conservative government tried to force retroactive funding cuts this year but had to cancel them after municipal leaders complained their annual budgets had already passed.
After Ford paused this year’s planned cuts — to public health, child care and land ambulance funding — it was unclear whether they would go ahead next year. His office now says Ford will announce that some of those changes will take effect Jan. 1.
For weeks, the premier and his cabinet ministers had defended the cuts as necessary to tackle an urgent financial situation, and said municipalities needed to do their part, as the recipients of a large share of provincial dollars. The government is trying to eliminate an $11.7-billion deficit.
Starting on Jan. 1, municipalities will also have to pay 20 per cent of the cost of creating new child care spaces, which the province previously fully funded.
Some cuts to funding for administrative child care costs are being delayed until 2021 and others are being delayed to 2022.
Ford is also expected to announce changes to land ambulance funding at the Ottawa gathering of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.
In the midst of taking heat from municipalities over the cuts this spring, Ford announced up to $7.35 million in total for audits to help them find savings in their budgets. Ford’s office said Monday that 34 out of 39 eligible municipalities took the province up on its offer.
All school boards were also eligible to apply, but the premier’s office said only two did, so the deadline for them to apply is being extended to Aug. 30.
- Canadian Press
