There will be “significant” public sector job cuts, one-third fewer ministries and a two-year wage freeze if the Progressive Conservatives form the next Ontario government, Tory Leader Tim Hudak says.Hudak, who has been making policy announcements this week, laid out his political road map Thursday. It calls for smaller government, an end to compulsory union membership for mid-level civil servants and more privatized public services, including killing the Liquor Control Board of Ontario’s booze monopoly.
“We have a new approach … we are going to inject into the public sector what has made the private sector successful,” he told reporters, adding it’s the only way to tackle the province’s $14.4-billion deficit.
Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said Hudak’s 26-page so-called New Deal for the Public Sector would be “a raw deal for Ontarians.”
“The paths he has laid out are based on ideology, not policy, and certainly not on results. The proposals … are reckless and will increase Ontario deficit and debt. He is recycling ideas that didn’t work before and they won’t work again,” Duncan said.
His office later added that the Ontario government already has the lowest number of public servants per capita in Canada.
Hudak said he rejects the premise that a government’s success should be measured by the number of employees it has.
“The reductions in the size and cost of government and positions on the payroll will be significant,” he said, while refusing to be specific.
However, he pointed out 2,000 positions would disappear, for example, if the Local Health Integrated Network was scrapped and suggested there are 9,000 employees at school boards “who don’t spend a minute in the classroom.”
According to last year’s Drummond report on public service reform, there are 65,000 employees in the Ontario Public Service and another one million working in the broader public sector, including health care, schools and municipalities.
Under Hudak’s proposal, there would be no bonuses handed out during the two-year-freeze; nor would previously agreed-upon wage hikes be recognized, such as the one awarded to OPP officers, who are slated to get an 8.5-per-cent pay hike in 2014.
Earlier this week Hudak announced he would end the LCBO and Beer Store monopolies because he believes that more competition will make more money for the province.
On Thursday his finance critic Peter Shurman astonished reporters when he said “frankly we don’t (know how much more money)” the province stands to make from privatizing all or part of the LCBO, which last year turned over $1.6 billion to the province.
A 2005 report by the Beverage Alcohol System Review Panel, commissioned by the Liberal government, concluded greater competition would bring in about $200 million or more per year for the province.
Among other things, the Tories are proposing that the 24 current ministries be trimmed to 16 — a one-third reduction — and that a cabinet minister’s pay be tied to meeting budgetary and economic targets, such as reducing spending and red tape.
Hudak also said civil servants will be given goals and targets “to measure productivity just like they do in the business world” and if they don’t reach them they can expect to be shown the door.
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Richard J. Brennan
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