The 23 cent plan

Moving forward in the fight to save the ONTC from being divested General Chairperson’s Association President Brian Kelly debunked Premier Dalton McGuinty’s numbers and introduced the ‘23 cent plan’ during a news conference Wednesday.

Kelly says the Premier’s number crunching shows that ridership and revenue is down but Kelly says that simply isn’t true, in fact he says revenue is up 7 percent.

“In 2003, the first year of the McGuinty Liberal government, ONTC net revenue (excluding government contributions) was $108.6M and in spite of the global economic downturn that affected every sector of the economy, the demise of the mining sector in Timmins and the forest industry across the North, ONTC net revenue for 2011/12 will be $116.2 M, an increase of 7%.”

“The truth is ridership has seen increases year over year in all passenger services. The Northlander ridership in 2009/10 was 31,746 and it increased by 10% in 2010/11 to 34,959. This year, ending March 31, ridership count is expected to jump an additional 16% to 40,552 riders.”

“This certainly does not sound like a service that is in decline.”

Kelly says just by looking at the subsidy numbers it is obvious McGuinty has instrumented a north south divide in Ontario.

“If you look to the Metrolinx budget in 2009/2010 they embarked in the largest capital investment program ever, of that that was $1.16 Billion for this past year up from $861 million, that’s an increase of 34 percent in capital investment alone.

“And from 2005 and 2006 it’s an increase of 320 percent, so he’s flooding money into the southern Ontario but he isn’t flooding money into northern Ontario.”

Kelly says looking at the whole picture the GCA has developed the ‘23 cent solution’ in which all Ontario taxpayers, North and South will have equal support to provincially funded inter-city passenger services, without distinction.



Kelly says by combining ridership and subsidy per passenger for Northlander and Metrolinx GO services the Ontario Government would be supporting the whole of Ontario.

Mayor Al McDonald and Chamber of Commerce President John Strang both once again committed their support of the employees and their efforts.

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