“ I have decided to campaign for 13 million
Ontarians”..
Dalton McGuinty Premier of Ontario
An Exclusive Interview with the Honourable Dalton McGinty Premier of Ontario.
By Thomas S. Saras Editor-In-Chief
I realize it is an extremely busy time for you. I would like to thank you for taking the time to have this interview.
Q –The economy is one of the concerns of the citizens of Ontario. We are seeing a crisis in the economy not only here in Ontario but globally and Ontarians are feeling the crunch. What the Ontarians want to know is what are your plans?
A-First of all Tom, there are many Ontario families that are anxious because of what is happening in the both the global economy and here at home. And there are some powerful economic winds that are blowing across Ontario. Here specifically they translate to things like high oil, a high dollar and a high cost of oil. The sputtering US economy are our single largest trading partner and as such makes a real difference when they are not able to purchase the goods that are manufactured here. So while we take control of those three issues, the dollar, the price of oil and the strength in the US economy we are hardly helpless. That brings us to our five point plan. It is a solid plan, it’s the right plan for the times and it speaks to our strengths and builds on those strengths. So we are doing five separate things. I will quickly go over them. Firstly we are cutting business taxes. We have eliminated capital taxes for our manufacturing and resources sector. We eliminated those taxes retroactively which we actually had to give a refund to business, which was very much needed. Secondly we are investing heavily in infrastructure. We have a $60 billion plan over a ten-year period. Just recently we announced $1.1billion for our municipalities. The great thing about putting money into infrastructure is that it creates jobs right away. In the longer term it increases our competitiveness and our productivity. Thirdly we are investing in innovation. For example you may have heard that we have a tax moratorium now on any new business that is based on an idea coming out of a Canadian college, university or research institute in the next ten years. It does not matter how much of a profit you make you pay zero taxes. Fourthly we are entering into partnerships with business when business is prepared to reach higher to make a new investment in the skills of the people or new equipment, to hire on more people. We are prepared to help with that if certain conditions are met. And lastly and our single greatest priority is we continue to invest in the skills and education of our people. The last announcement related to that had to do with is something we call our second career strategy. We have long-term training opportunities for upto 20 000 Ontarians. We pay for their costs to go back to school upto two years.
Q- My next question is with regards to this exactly. After Ontarians finish this 2 years schooling and start applying for positions that they are qualified for, I am hearing complaints from the ethnic communities that these qualified people have not even been granted an interview let alone received a job offer. I found this hard to believe and as such I asked people that I know who qualify for certain positions that are posted on the government websites to submit their applications and see what happens. Now these are people who currently work in the private sector in these same positions. I was quite disappointed to find out that not one of these individuals received a call back for an interview. I repeat not to get a placement for a job they qualify, but for an interview. Can you please explain if this policy of your government?
A- First of all when it comes to our two year training program we just starting this and the two years are up. One of the things that we are doing is making sure that people who take this training are taking it in an area where there will be jobs, where there is a demand and eventually match the demands of the market place with those training opportunities. You also raised another issue, which is very important which is how good a job are we doing as a society and as an economy to match up skills that are here right now with demands that exit right now. We have, Tom, more work to do, which is why we recently ran an advertising campaign promoting a value of taking a good long hard look at new Canadians who come here and bring many skills and much experience with them. I believe Tom, the last time someone gave me the figure of 70% of all work force growth comes from immigration. They tell me that in five or ten years time 100% will come from immigration. So we as an economy, very quickly better learn to take advantage of all our immigration talent if we don’t, we will not be able to grow this economy as quickly as we need to in order to sustain the quality of life we have here in order to support the public services that we all cherish.
Q-Prof. Weiner last week reported on the new immigrants in Toronto. I am not sure whether you are aware of this report. But he clearly stated that people are generally aware that we need the skilled new immigrants to get the jobs but he states according to his one year study not one of these skilled new immigrants have jobs in the fill their formal training. From the moment these new immigrants come to Canada they come with great hopes of getting a job in their trained profession but none of these people have a proper job placement. They found that nothing can be done and they leave and go elsewhere, where they can find work according to their qualifications. This is a very serious matter. Do you not think that it is part of the government’s responsibility to rectify this problem?
A-Well Tom, one thing I think Ontarians can expect from us is that we will lead by example. You all know about our internship program, you know that we have asked all the ministries and more and more government agencies to hire new Canadians and to give them that work place experience and we are discovering that more and more of them are not only giving them that experience but are hiring them on permanently. So we think this is a great example for the private sector. It has been longer than we have hoped but I am convinced that more and more businesses that desire to grow and are looking for talent will recognize that there is a ton of talent to be found in new Canadians. The other thing of course is that we have set up this fairness commissioner. This is a slightly different agency in order to deal with our professional bodies to make sure that credentials are being recognized of our new Canadians and we can get people into the work place as soon as possible.
Q- Let me say that every one can notice the gap between rich and poor in this province has increased in the last few years. I see a very rich culture with expensive luxurious items but I also see how the very poor struggle on a daily basis just to have their basic needs met. This has caused an almost domino affect on the children of these new Canadians who live below the poverty line and believe there are many. They see their parents struggling for the basics and as such they turn to a life of drugs and crime because they believe this is the answer to a better life. They are tired of seeing their parents and themselves live below the poverty line. What progress, if any, has your government done to help this situation?
A-I think it is fair to say that we have made some progress but there is more work to be done. Let me tell you about some of the things we have done. The first thing we did was that we strengthened the single most important run on the ladder of opportunity. That is education. On my father’s side, my grandmother was married at 16 she married a man that was 32. They both had grade eight education. On my mother’s side when she was still very young her father left one day and never came back so my mother was raised by her grandmother alone and my grandmother got a job cleaning other people’s houses. Two generations later I am Premier of the greatest province in the best country in the world. And this is because my dad finished high school. He was the youngest in his family and the only one who finished high school and he went onto university. My mother worked hard and had an opportunity to obtain an education she became a nurse. My parents had ten children and from the moment we were born they told us all the very same thing. You will all finish high school and you have to do something after high school. So that speaks to the power of opportunity. So we worked hard to improve the quality of our schools. We have smaller classes and higher test scores and higher graduation rates. 10,000 more young children now graduate from high school when they used to drop out. We have 50,000 more people in apprenticeships and 100,000 more in colleges and universities. We now have the highest rate of post secondary education in the western world. We are proud of that. So we have created educational opportunities. But we do understand that it can be tough for our families living in poverty so we have done a few things. First of all we have created, new in Ontario, a child benefit, the first of its kind in the country. It is being phased in and it will grow to $1100.00 every year to help parents have sufficient funds to pay for necessities for the children. By the way it is not just for the people who are on social systems, we have made sure that this is available to the working poor. So it is available to over 100,000 adults that covers a lot of kids. We have also struck a cabinet committee. I am looking forward very much to the results from the cabinet committee. It is headed up by Deb Matthews the Minister of Children Youth Services. All the most powerful cabinet ministers sit on this committee. Her job is to come back to me with a bit of a road map and I told her I need a few things from her. Number one, I need for her to tell me what the indicators of poverty are, because there is lots of debate as to who is poor and who is not so lets obtain a reliable set of indicators. Number two, give me some targets. We have never done this here in Canada for poverty reduction. Number three, give me a strategy to achieve those targets. I have been in politics now for 18 years and I have never heard of any Canadian government that has set out in such a determined way to establish indicators put in place targets and put in place a strategy to achieve those targets. And by the way Tom, we also want to do something else. We want to make public the targets and our progress or lack thereof in achieving those targets just as we have done in class sizes, tests scores and wait times.
Q- I wish you the very best in your endeavour but I what you to know that I live on a daily basis in the real society and my main concern comes from the fact that this multicultural mosaic society believes differently. There are segments of the population that feel pressure because they cannot find jobs and they believe different stories as to why they cannot find them. I am afraid that this will cost the province and society in the long run.
What are your ideas about the federal politics now that we are in an election mode?
A- Well, people ask me who are you going to campaign with? But the real question is who will I campaign for? I have decided to campaign for 13 million Ontarians. And I am asking Ontario voters to ask all their candidates regardless of their politic stripe whether or not they are prepared to stand up for their province. And I want them to stand up for fairness in Ontario. I will give you three specific examples. Number one, if you loose your job in Ontario you get $4600.00 less by way of employment insurance than you would if you were in the other provinces. That is not fair. Ontario families get less money for their health care than do families living in other provinces. That adds up to $700,000 million dollars a year. There is only one part in the entire country that does not have the benefit of a permanent regional economic development program, Southern Ontario. Well guess where manufacturing job losses are coming from? They are coming from Southern Ontario. We need a program to help us grow our economy. The last point is infrastructure. Roads, bridges and the like, we are being short-changed by $960 million from the federal billed program that is over the course of ten years. So as I have been telling people in speeches, Ontarians are not looking for special treatment, we are looking for the same treatment we are looking for fair treatment and for the first time we are going to use a federal election to put it to candidates of all political stripes. I know you want to talk to your candidates about the economy about the environment about Canada’s place in the world, about social programs and the like. There is another question you can ask your candidates–Are you prepared to stand up for Ontario? The way the Quebec MP’s stand up for Quebec, the way the Albertan MP’s stand up for Alberta that is an important question and I want to sensitize our potential MP’s to their special responsibility ode to their own province.
Q- Does your government have any plans prepared for these changing times?
A- Very good question. We have a number of programs that have worked very successfully for us. But we can go further and faster if we had the support of the federal government. Let me tell you about some of these programs. One is called Advanced Manufacturing Investment Strategy that is $500 million, the other one is called the Next Generation of Jobs Funds, which is over $1 billion. Our Auto investment strategy that was $500 million, that we landed I forget how many billions of dollars and 7000 or 8000 new jobs. Here is what I have learned Tom, on the basis of traveling and paying attention to other leaders in particular US Governors. You cannot simply sit back and say well I have cut your taxes now go out there and win, because other governments find a way to lend support to economic growth. This protects the interest of taxpayers but to give you an example shortly we will be opening up a new Toyota automobile assembly plant. It is the first one in Ontario, new greenshield assembly plant I think in more than a decade some 20-25 years. Now Toyota had North America from which to choose. We were competing with other states and we won that not only because our taxes are competitive but because of the skills of our labour but also because we were able to sit down with them and come to an arrangement that lead them to invest here. So that is an example what we are doing to help support economic growth. Of course we are making sure we have smart people here highly skilled and educated as well.
Q- The problem again is that we are heavily dependent on the automobile industry and it seems to me that things are changing because of the high cost of oil. Not many Ontarians are crazy to invest in a new car or a big car, so don’t you think that to some extent the government has to take care and see that things are changing and we need alternatives sources of energy and so forth.
A- That’s a very good point. The auto sector is a very important part of the manufacturing sector, which in turn is a very important part of the Ontario economy. And news about the auto sector tends to dominant. But we have been involved in far more projects beyond auto, which do not receive any news. For example I was recently at a business called Six-End technologies, I believe sold chips for use in solar panels and they have come up of a process for them to make of highly efficient solar chips faster and cheaper than pretty much anyone else on this planet. They want to expand they want to grow. They said can we talk to you. We said yes, come and see us. So we found a way to support them with a modest loan so that they can grow. So we found a way to work with the many other industries beyond the auto sector. Particularly in the green economy, we think it holds great promise for us.
Q- We are constantly discussing the need with respect to the green economy but at the same time not only yours but any government in Canada is doing very little to promote the need with respect to the environment. Toronto is one of the worst cities with regards to the air. As you know I suffer from a heart condition and I find it often that I am unable to breath. I cannot go out doors if I do I immediately feel pain in my chest. I find that the government has done very little to help with the environmental issues.
A- Well Tom, I have to disagree with you. We have I think 8 or 9 wind turbines and I think we have about 700 or 800 either up in running or under construction. We have the fastest growing renewable jurisdiction in all of North American. We are building the biggest solar panel farm in Sarnia Ontario. If you were to fly out to Sault Saint Marie and to fly over the big wind farm there and see all those giant turbines turning quietly and efficiently and generating electricity using a source that is free – wind. Sun you won’t have to pay to catch the sun, nothing, it is free. I think you would be proud of what we have been able to do as Ontarians to improve the quality of our environment. Niagara Falls has been up and running for about 8 or 9 years. We are digging a new tunnel in Niagara Falls but the great thing about this is that it will create new clean electricity for us. At the same time we have all kinds of new programs in place to try and encourage people to give up that extra fridge. We just put in new lights here – do you see these new lights? These are fluorescent lights We are phasing out the old incandescent high electricity demand light bulbs and putting in the new ones. So we have a ton of programs in place to help Ontarians. The single most important driver of change is the Ontario consumer. My wife the other day Tom, she sold our minivan and she bought a small car. She said that is what I am buying from now on. She said the minivan is too hard on gas and the price of gas was going down at the time. You were talking earlier about the decision to buy more energy efficient cars. Well they (Ontarians) are also looking for more energy efficient TV’s, fridges, stoves, washers, dryers and they want to know what to do to put more insulation in their homes. And we have tax credits and programs in place for all those kinds of things to help people make those kinds of decisions.
Thank you Mr. Premier for your time.
