The People’s Guarantee contains a number of measures recommended by the Auditor General


Last week, Ontario’s Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk released her office’s 2017 annual report. Throughout the course of the evidenced-based independent audit, the Auditor General recommends a number of changes to government policy in Ontario. Many of these recommendations are contained within the Ontario PC’s People’s Guarantee. 

Auditor General’s Report

People’s Guarantee

Pg 778: Government Advertising Rules – “We have made clear since 2015 that our preference would be to restore the original Act.”

Pg 64: “Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs will return the Auditor General’s oversight over government advertising.”

News Release for Chapter 3.11: “…the Province needs to dispose of real estate within its portfolio on a timelier basis.”

Pg 34: “Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs will review the province’s real estate portfolio to increase housing supply or municipally led affordable housing.”

News Release for Chapter 3.01: “One major concern expressed by some municipalities was that the Municipal Board may have exceeded its jurisdiction by overturning section of the municipalities’ Official Plans.”

Pg 34: “By having adequate municipal input into provincial growth plans, coupled with regular zoning updates, usage of appeal bodies like the Ontario Municipal Board will become less common.”

Pg 272: “Existing programs are likely insufficient to help farmers during a crisis because of low and decreasing participation, low coverage, and low payments.”

Pg 58: “Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs will increase the Risk Management Program cap by $50 million and allow unused portions to rollover to the next year.”

Pg 131: “…patients who do not fit in any of these categories must rely on private insurance (if they have it) or pay for [oral take home cancer drugs] themselves. In comparison, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, which operate different drug funding models than Ontario, cover the costs of all publicly funded cancer drugs for all patients. Cancer patients in these provinces do not have to apply for financial support through a lengthy process…”

Pg 43: “Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs will fund take-home oral cancer drugs where they are equally or more effective for treatment to allow more cancer patients to receive treatment at home if they wish.”

Pg 162: “Based on our analysis of PET scan rates in Ontario and other jurisdictions, we found that Ontario’s rate was lower than most other countries, including Canada as a whole.”

Pg 63: “Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs will invest in a mobile PET scanner for Northern Ontario.”

Pg 202: “While we noted in our audit that all eight CHCs we visited have formed partnerships with other mental health services providers…half of them indicated that they had difficulty meeting clients’ mental health needs.”

Pg 181: “We found that 16% of the CHCs were responsible for more patients than their capacity allows, some of the CHCs we visited had people waiting to access primary care and other interdisciplinary services such as mental health and physiotherapy”

Pg 41: “Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs will commit $1.9 billion to build a comprehensive mental health system, which is the largest mental health commitment in Canadian provincial history.”

 

Pg 44: “Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs will restore the $50 million cut from seniors’ preventative therapy services budget for services such as physiotherapy.”

Pg 534: “Some public health units offer only provincially mandated programs, but others can provide additional public health services that are funded by their municipalities. For example, the City of Toronto funds a dental program for low-income seniors and adults, as well as for children and youth who are not eligible for other dental programs.”

Pg 41: “Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs will create a dental program for low-income seniors.”

 

Pg 41: “First, the government should provide funding for dental capacity in Public Health Units, Community Health Centres and Aboriginal Health Access Centres.”

Pg 431: “Students have been performing below the standard in Grades 3 and 6 math and Grade 9 applied math since at least 2008/09. However, the Ministry has not acted quickly enough to bring about improvement in math results. In fact, the elementary level math results have gotten worse. The main root causes of poor performance identified by the Ministry, following consultation with stakeholders initiated in November 2015, included the need for educators to increase their knowledge of the mathematics curriculum, related pedagogy (effective teaching strategies), and effective assessment and evaluation practices.”

Pg 70: “…teachers often have little formal training in math even though they are required to teach elementary math to students….One of the ways the province can create more skilled math teachers is by making every teacher’s college course in the province contain a math component.”

 

Pg 70: “The province should work with school boards and teachers to set aside one Professional Development day per year for updating current teachers’ math skills.”

Pg 480: “Despite numerous initiatives taken by the Ministry in dealing with the recent opioid crisis in the province, it does not have the critical information needed to inform its decisions in addressing the issues. Specifically, the Ministry does not know whether individuals overdosed or died from using prescription opioids or illicit opioids.”

Pg 40: “The funding [of $1.9 billion] will be directed towards priorities that will include…Investing in data collection regarding mental health, addiction, and treatment to identify and fill gaps in care.”

 

Pg 42: “Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs will do more to combat the opioid crisis including….integrating health and justice planning boards to ensure proper coordination across government.”

Backgrounder for Chapter 3.10: “…physical inactivity accounted for the highest health-care spending at 12.8%, 9.9% to smoking, 1.2% to diet, and 0.3% to alcohol. Being overweight or obese has been identified as a major contributor to chronic disease, such as diabetes.”

 

 

Pg 32: “Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs will provide $124 million for recreational infrastructure to promote physical activity and healthy living.”

 

Pg 32: “Only 21% of children in grades seven through 12 are getting the minimum recommended daily level of physical activity, largely because one-third of children in the country do not enroll in any sort of organized sport due to costs….Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs will bring back a Children’s Arts and Fitness Tax Credit.”

 

Pg 44: “Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs will extend the current pilot program of 60 minutes of daily exercise to all schools.”

Pg 8: “We found there was limited co-ordination between the two levels of government to avoid duplication of services. We estimated that in 2016/17, for example, about $30 million in Ontario funded newcomer services were provided to individuals who were eligible for services already funded by the federal government….Planning to expand co-ordination between the two levels of government could have helped minimize duplication of services and resulted in savings for Ontario.”

Pg 49: “Further, the Ontario government should push for national co-ordination on the issue [newcomer integration] through an annual Fist Ministers meeting on the subject.”

* To be clear, the Auditor General has not endorsed any part of the People’s Guarantee or the policies within it, these are simply areas of the platform that align with comments made in the Auditor’s report. The Auditor General made it very clear during her press conference that she had not read the People’s Guarantee. 

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