January 29, 2020

Queen’s Park Today – Daily Report January 29, 2020

Quotation of the day

“Why bother engaging with the [Canadian Securities Administrators] if you can go straight to Queen’s Park and get something shut down?”

Former Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) chair Ed Waitzer says Maureen Jensen’s resignation from the OSC’s top job has raised concerns about “political interference” at the regulator (via Financial Post).

Today at Queen’s Park

On the schedule The house will reconvene on Tuesday, February 18, 2020.

PCs cancel professional development fund for health-care professionals The PC government is axing a popular fund that allowed health-care providers to upgrade their professional and clinical training, Queen’s Park Today has learned.

The Allied Health Professional Fund provides up to $1,500 per year for professional development to members of nine certified health professions, including occupational therapists, lab and radiation technologists, pharmacists and speech-language pathologists, among others.

The fund, which will be wound down on March 2, was designed to encourage health professionals to complete courses or workshops that would bolster their clinical skills and train them to use new technologies.

“As part of our modernization strategy, we are focusing as much funding as possible on front line patient care,” Health Minister Christine Elliott’s said in a statement to Queen’s Park Today that confirmed the cancellation of the funding.

“Going forward, we will be working with health system partners in allied health, including professional associations, to identify the best ways to support the continuing education of the entire allied health workforce, including the design of any future programs,” Elliott’s office said.

Greg Toffner, president and CEO of the Ontario Association of Medical Radiation Sciences, said the cancellation of the fund sends the message the government doesn't consider allied professionals to be frontline health-care workers, which “couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“Our members see patients in acute care facilities across the province and do the diagnosis before they are even treated,” said Toffner, who is also a co-chair of the fund, in an interview with Queen’s Park Today. “They don’t value the benefits our members are bringing to the system.”

He said his organization’s members, who conduct x-rays, ultrasounds and MRIs and administer radiation therapy to cancer patients, rely on the funding to learn how to operate new technologies, which are being upgraded on a regular basis in health-care facilities across the province.

In 2017-18, the fund doled out $3,482,370, an average of $546 per professional that accessed it, according to Toffner.

He called that “a drop in the bucket” when it comes to the province’s overall health-care budget.

Eliminating the fund, which has been in place for 13 years, will have “a direct impact on health care, technology and procedures that are being performed on patients,” he said, adding that he hopes the PCs reverse their decision.

Tiff Blair, spokesperson for the Registered Practical Nurses Association of Ontario, told Queen’s Park Today the government is also examining some existing funding programs for nurses, but has not made any changes yet.

Today’s events

January 29 at 2 p.m. – Sarnia Stan Cho, parliamentary assistant to the minister of finance, will hold a pre-budget consultation at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 62.

Topics of conversation

● The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario and the province are heading back to the bargaining table today alongside a Ministry of Labour-appointed mediator. The parties agreed to resume negotiations Tuesday.

○ ETFO president Sam Hammond referred to the negotiations as “open exploratory talks” and said the government must provide a “mandate to remove further cuts,” as well as increase support for students with special needs, maintain the full-day kindergarten program and keep hiring processes transparent. ○ “Our hope is the union will come to the table with realistic proposals that prioritize student success over compensation demands,” said Education Minister Stephen Lecce, who maintains compensation is the sticking point for teachers. ○ If a deal is not reached by January 31, ETFO will hold rotating walkouts everyday next week, as well as a one-day provincewide walkout next Thursday, meaning all elementary schools will be shut down for two of the five school days. ○ The Ontario Principals’ Council weighed in to ask the PCs to remove the reporting requirement for EQAO testing this spring. ○ “It is imperative that the ministry acknowledges that, during the current job action, it is not business as usual in schools. Regular reporting procedures cannot continue in a vacuum without the assistance of all school staff,” the principals’ council said.

● Meanwhile, Catholic schools will be shuttered next Tuesday, when the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association has scheduled its second provincewide walkout, unless a deal is reached.

● More than 30 workers employed by the City of Hamilton are out of a job, following the province’s abrupt cancellation of the city’s LRT project last month, the Hamilton Spectator reports.

● Conservative activist Jim Karahalios announced Tuesday he is throwing his hat into the Conservative Party of Canada leadership race. Karahalios — who is married to Cambridge PC MPP Belinda Karahalios — is currently suing the Progressive Conservative Party, alleging its 2018 race to crown a new president was rigged to elect his rival, Brian Patterson, and is seeking $100,000 in damages. ○ Karahalios was a thorn in the side of ex-PC leader Patrick Brown, leading an Axe the Carbon Tax campaign that resulted in his party membership being briefly rescinded. ○ In the CPC leadership race, Karahalios said he will be running to the political right of candidates Peter MacKay and Erin O’Toole and called himself “a fighter with a track record of winning against all odds.”

● Following a regional meeting on gun violence held at Toronto City Hall Tuesday, Mayor John Tory; the regional chairs of Peel, Durham and York; and a fleet of GTA mayors called on the provincial and federal governments to provide cities with more funding for “programs that focus on at-risk and high-risk young people.”

○ Tory and his regional counterparts also committed to working with the provincial government to lobby Ottawa to enact tougher bail laws and sentencing for repeat offenders who are caught engaging in gun violence and gun trafficking.

● The number of potential coronavirus cases under investigation in the province has dropped from 19 to 11. No new cases have been diagnosed.

● Kitchener City Council voted unanimously Monday to call on Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark to release the results of his regional governance review, which wrapped up last year but has not been made public. ○ After reviewing the report, Clark opted to stick with the status quo and not redraw regional boundaries. Kitchener councillors say access to its recommendations and comments could help the city find efficiencies.

● Dr. Bob Bell, Ontario’s former deputy minister of health, was on hand for Liberal leadership candidate Steven Del Duca’s meeting with Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown on Tuesday. Del Duca laid out plans for tackling the health-care crisis in Brampton, including moving forward with the Peel Memorial Centre expansion project.

● Opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project has “risen considerably” in Ontario over the past 18 months, according to a new poll from Angus Reid. Thirty-six per cent of respondents now say they oppose the pipeline, up from 23 per cent in June 2018. ○ The percentage of Ontarians who support the project grew last year, hitting 63 per cent in July 2019, but has since dropped to 56 per cent.

● Le Droit, a French-language newspaper based in Ottawa, is sending a full-time reporter to Queen’s Park for the first time in 30 years.

News briefs

Minister Cho announces new cross-government accessibility program ● Accessibility Minister Raymond Cho says the province will act on recommendations made by former lieutenant-governor David C. Onley on improving accessibility via a new cross-government program called Advancing Accessibility in Ontario. ○ Future initiatives include providing the building sector with free resources on “how to improve accessibility in the built environment” and developing a guide alongside the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing with tips for making new homes more accessible. ○ The NDP countered that the PCs have been sitting on Onley’s review of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act for a year, and suggested

yesterday’s announcement offered “no actual commitment to enforcing accessibility standards in Ontario.” ○ The chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, David Lepofsky, also slammed Cho’s announcement, calling it “thin gruel” that won’t achieve full accessibility by 2025, as required by the act. He also noted one of the policies Cho re-announced was a Bob Rae-era law requiring transit vehicles to be accessible.

Funding announcements

Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development ● Labour Minister Monte McNaughton and local MPP Rick Nicholls were in Windsor Tuesday to announce $14 million for the second phase of the province’s Driving Prosperity Plan, meant to bolster the auto parts manufacturing sector. ○ The funds for the second phase of the plan will grant employers with up to $3,000 to provide job placements for postsecondary students, recent graduates and apprentices. ○ McNaughton says the program will create 4,000 placements and allow new grads to “explore the auto industry as a career option.” ○ The province launched a $40-million auto strategy last year after GM announced it would close its Oshawa plant. ○ Tuesday’s announcement was “too little and far too late,” according to NDP Automotive critic Wayne Gates. ○ “The Ford government’s so-called ‘auto policy’ has been a total failure. Since it was announced, we’ve seen nothing but auto industry job losses in Windsor and Oakville, and the closure of the GM assembly line in Oshawa,” Gates said in a statement.

Queen's Park Today is written by Sabrina Nanji, reporting from the Queen's Park press gallery.

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