This news release was issued May 23, 2018, by the Ontario Liberals on behalf of Sudbury candidate Glenn Thibeault and Nickel Belt candidate Tay Butt
SUDBURY — Ontario Liberals are the only party that will continue working with northern communities to invest in good jobs. Tourism operators, agri-food businesses, the Northern film and TV industry, health care innovation, Northern internships, Mining technology start-ups, craft breweries and distilleries and Francophone arts and culture are just some of the businesses, sectors and opportunities on the rise in Northern Ontario because of that partnership. But all of that is at risk in this election, with the NDP threatening to unravel funding that is strengthening northern Ontario’s diverse economy.
Premier Kathleen Wynne was at Crosscut Distillery today with Sudbury Candidate Glenn Thibeault to highlight their plan to continue creating good jobs across the North by expanding the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC). The Ontario Liberals are the only party with a plan to increase NOHFC funding to $150 million per year by 2020-21.
Andrea Horwath has already been forced to admit to a major math mistake in her platform and it has been widely reported that the NDP plan is full of errors and job-killing ideas. This includes the NDP’s decision to cut $85 million from the NOHFC. By cutting NOHFC funding, the NDP is demonstrating that they are not looking out for the best interests of Northerners. The NDP is not ready to take on Doug Ford, keep our economy strong, create jobs and deliver on the priorities that we hold in common.
Doug Ford and the Conservatives will cut billons from the services people depend on — such as health care, education and transit — while rewarding the rich with unnecessary tax cuts. Ford calls job-creating programs like the NOHFC and support for Bombardier “corporate welfare” and can’t be trusted to continue making the investments Northern communities need.
Only the Ontario Liberals understand the need to partner with Northern communities to create good jobs. Increasing NOHFC funding is part of the Ontario Liberal plan that makes the largest mental health care investment in Canadian history, expands publicly funded prescription drugs to one-in-two people in Ontario, builds a record amount of roads and bridges, boosts hospital funding, helps more people go to college or university with publicly funded tuition and lets more parents go back to work by funding preschool child care from 2 ½ to kindergarten. Ontario’s economy is growing stronger, but that growth and the care and services it funds are at risk this election.
QUICK FACTS
• Since Kathleen Wynne became Premier in 2013, the NOHFC has invested more than $621 million in over 3,845 projects, creating or sustaining over 15,300 jobs in Northern Ontario and securing more than $2.2 billion in direct economic activity
• The Ontario Liberal plan expands the NOHFC, introduces new programs and increases funding by 50 per cent, representing an increase of $85 million over the next three years and reaching $150 million per year by 2020-21
• In 2005, Ontario Liberals responded to the shortage of Northern doctors by creating the Northern Ontario School of Medicine with campuses in Sudbury and Thunder Bay. Today, 94 per cent of NOSOM graduates who do a family medicine residency in the North stay there to practice
• Recent Ontario Liberal investments in Northern health care include over 430 new long-term care spaces, a PET scanner currently being installed at Sudbury’s Health Sciences North, angioplasty services now available in Thunder Bay and a comprehensive cardiovascular surgery facility treating 1,000 patients a year by 2020 at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre
• Ontario Liberals have brought a new law school and courthouse to Thunder Bay, saved the Atikokan and Thunder Bay Generating Stations and are committed to 4-laning the TransCanada Highway from the Manitoba border to Quebec
