It appears that North Bay is a popular destination for Ontario Cabinet Ministers as of late with 3 visiting last week and another on the agenda this week.
It appears that North Bay is a popular destination for Ontario Cabinet Ministers as of late with 3 visiting last week and another on the agenda this week.
Last week Minister of Northern Development and Mines, Rick Bartolucci, and Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal, David Caplan, paid a visit in order to provided details about the Growth Plan for Northern Ontario, while Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, George Smitherman, toured the LHIN offices. Minister of Transportation, Donna Cansfield, will be in town this week to meet with Mayor Vic Fedeli and a Russian trade delegation.
Caplan explained that the Growth Plan for Northern Ontario is about delivering a master plan for growth and development, economic growth, environmental and sustainability.
“It’s about attracting jobs, infrastructure investment, private sector investment, it’s about hope and opportunity in Northern Ontario over the long term,” states Caplan.
“It’s the first time that we’ve brought 16 ministries of government all focused on solving a particular problem.”
Caplan acknowledges that although the Golden Horseshoe model is already in place it cannot and will not address the issues of the North.
“This is going to be a radically different plan then our award winning Greater Golden Horseshoe plan, because the challenges are quite different. We have rapid urbanisation in the south; we’ve had out migration and lost opportunities in the North a resource-based economy, but we do have underlying strengths here that we can build on.”
“We have emerging opportunities as well that we can build on and we have in Northerners a tremendous entrepreneurial spirit which we can take advantage of. We’ve got incredible advocates like Monique Smith, my colleague Mr. Rick Bartolucci and so many others who are willing to share with us their wisdom their knowledge, now we need to listen and grab those good ideas, bind them together and imbed it in the legislation in the Places Grow Legislation and make it a reality.”
Bartolucci refutes allegations that ministers are only making appearances because it is an election year.
“I would say that we’ve been interested in the North since we came to power, so that’s why we asked Northerners to sit on Northern development councils, something that the previous government cancelled or wouldn’t put into operation. And that’s why we refocused the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation to reflect what Northerners want.”
“And that’s why because of listening to Northerners we were able to invest almost 1-billion dollars directly and the money that we were able to leverage through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, create in excess of 8,000 jobs,” he states.
“We as a government and as a party understand that if we listen to the creativity of the Northerners, if we listen to them as we Northerners devise our action plan, it will be an action plan that is successful. Contrary to what was previously done when all decisions were made down south for Northerners, we’ve changed that mentality and we will continue to change that mentality as we govern with the advice of Northerners solving the issues of Northern Ontario,” adds Bartolucci.
Meanwhile, Smitherman stopped in at the Northeast LHIN offices in the ONR building on Oak Street. He had no announcements to make during the visit, but hinted that an announcement, which could ease the lack of beds at hospitals and long term care homes, may be forthcoming.
Smitherman also hinted that the health premium tax is here to stay if the Liberals are re-elected in the fall.
Correction: On Wednesday, the group to meet with the Cansfield in Toronto to continue briefing her on the possibilities of TranPolar flights.
