Several dozen North Bay residents protested outside the Grande Event Centre Friday morning ahead of a speech by Finance Minister and Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli to members of the North Bay and District Chamber of Commerce.
Labour activist Henri Giroux, who was protesting as a private citizen, said the residents were opposed to the massive cuts in the Ford government budget.
“We’re here to tell Vic we’re not happy with the budget, there are too many cuts,” Giroux said.
On health, Giroux said the Tories are removing $500 million from OHIP and adds they muted public comment on proposed healthcare changes.
Giroux says only two days were set aside for public comment on health changes and those were in Toronto.
He says the government didn’t talk to anyone from Northern Ontario.
Giroux adds about 1,700 requests were made from people who wanted to comment on the proposed changes, but their input wasn’t heard.
Giroux was critical of the provincial government trying to save eight cents on every dollar as it tries to balance the budget.
“That adds up,” he said.
“Services are affected even though they (the government) says otherwise. It’s the frontline workers, not CEOs who will be affected and it’s going to get worse.”
In response to the protest, Fedeli said it was more fear mongering.
“We’re protecting what matters most and we’re putting people at the centre of everything,” Fedeli said.
The MPP said contrary to what the protesters claimed, the government was putting money into health and other sectors.
“We’re increasing the education budget by $700 million and increasing the health budget by $1.3 billion.”
Fedeli believes the activists are behaving the way they are because they expected one thing in the budget but got another.
“(The budget) doesn’t line up with their earlier fear-mongering talking points,” he said.
“The budget didn’t line up with their thoughts but they’re still protesting.”
Inside the Grande Event Centre, Fedeli told the chamber members that the Ford government has taken a sustainable path to balance the budget in five years.
“It’s a reasonable approach,” he said.
Fedeli said Ontario’s $343 billion dollar debt is a threat to Ontario’s well- being.
He says each year more than $12 billion dollars is paid on interest alone to service the debt.
The dollar amount is the fourth highest expense the government has behind health, education and social services.
Fedeli says the government is investing in core services like health and education.
He says in addition to the $700 million education sees in this year’s budget, the government will spend $13 billion on capital projects and repairs over the next 10 years.
Fedeli says the government is committed to ending hallway medicine and among the new money that’s going into health there’s $1.9 billion for mental health and addictions.
In addition, $90 million is being set aside for dental services for 100,000 low-income seniors to “bring relief to those most in need”.
He says savings in health will be achieved by reducing the bloated health bureaucracy.
Fedeli told the chamber members the deficit was $15 billion when Doug Ford won the election last June and became Premier.
He said since then the Tories have reduced the deficit by $3.3 billion and plan to cut a further $1.5 billion by next year.
His message to the chamber members was the goals the Ford government has outlined are achievable but also depend on people working together.
