Cutting The Deficit

So "respect" will do it. That's an encouraging take. Public service salaries take up over half of all government spending, and as such, as an issue, destined to become a major controversy as the Government of Ontario under Premier Dalton McGuinty takes tentative steps to back away from its former eight years of free spending.

"I'm hoping that the foundation of respect and collaboration and measurable progress that we have laid during the first eight years puts me in a good position so when I go to my teachers, my doctors,my nurses and everybody else in the public sector and say 'listen folks, we need to do this' ... I'm hoping they'll receive that with an open mind", explained Premier McGuinty; no guile intended, but much gullibility evidenced.

They are 'his' folks; 'his' doctors, nurses, teachers, whatever. He bought their loyalty with our tax dollars. The tax extracted by law from low-wage-earners, middling-income earners, and part-time employees, all of whom ultimately benefit from the services available in a once-wealthy province now reduced to wheedling and begging the federal government for equalization pay-outs.

In those same eight years that Dalton McGuinty ruled and misruled this province much occurred. In the sense that many people became unemployed and as a result were no longer able to pay taxes. Thousands upon thousands of well-paid jobs disappeared. People found themselves unemployed and under-employed, doing work that lifted them above the drowning line, just.

Welfare is costly to the treasury, as are all those other needful social services to keep people just beyond desperation. And with less taxes being gathered there is less, far less to expend. Therefore, those who gained so much through union contracts that were ultra-generous, to keep the peace between government and public-sector unions, should now feel grateful enough for their gains to eschew demands for further entitlements.

More job cuts coming in the province as the federal government begins to tighten its fiscal belt and has tasked its government departments to find billions in cost 'savings'. Costs can be reduced by reducing the workforce. We've been through that before in our usual boom-and-bust financial cycles. One supposes Ontario isn't doing too badly with unemployment now standing at 7.5%

But Ontario has a $16-billion deficit to trim. "It's simply not possible to reduce spending without addressing salary expenditures", Premier McGuinty explained. Speaking salaries, the province's teachers now earn on average over $82,000 annually. Doctors earn on average between $376,000 and $407,000 annually. That's pretty rich remuneration in anyone's book of entitled professionalism.

Salaries alone for the province's 25,000 doctors amount to an $10-billion annual bill. Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, however, representing frontline hospital workers who labour under the high-paid doctors, is not impressed on behalf of his union members. "Then to turn around to frontline workers and say 'you've got to moderate your demands'. That's not on."

Shrinking revenue and massive debts the servicing of which amounts to an annual $10-gasp-billion? And Ontario plans to have wiped out its deficit by when?