Reprinted with the permission of the author.
Better use of funds
The Ottawa Citizen February 8, 2010
Re: Hospital cuts wrong, Feb 5.
"Let's save hospital beds and operating rooms," says Andrea Horwath, Ontario NDP leader.
Wonderful idea, but does she have any creative ways to pay for them? Ontario has a $25-billion deficit and a debt soon to top $200 billion. Ontario pays $10 billion a year in interest, and it will rise.
There will be pain.
Here's an idea for her: How about we eliminate the enormously wasteful duplication in our school system? Oops, I forgot, her party's education funding task force is allowed to consider everything, except an amalgamation of Ontario's public and Catholic school systems.
Wake up, Horwath. Ontario's budget crisis means a lot of tough either-or choices lie ahead. Catholic school funding is far less important to most Ontarians than the health care, elderly care, child care, and education sectors that face the axe. Polls during the 2007 election indicated that most Ontarians want Catholic school funding eliminated.
It is immoral to cut essential services that contribute to the well-being of all Ontarians while continuing to fund a non-essential service for a favoured few.
Leonard Baak,
Stittsville
Education Equality in Ontario
Re: Hospital cuts wrong, Feb 5.
"Let's save hospital beds and operating rooms," says Andrea Horwath, Ontario NDP leader.
Wonderful idea, but does she have any creative ways to pay for them? Ontario has a $25-billion deficit and a debt soon to top $200 billion. Ontario pays $10 billion a year in interest, and it will rise.
There will be pain.
Here's an idea for her: How about we eliminate the enormously wasteful duplication in our school system? Oops, I forgot, her party's education funding task force is allowed to consider everything, except an amalgamation of Ontario's public and Catholic school systems.
Wake up, Horwath. Ontario's budget crisis means a lot of tough either-or choices lie ahead. Catholic school funding is far less important to most Ontarians than the health care, elderly care, child care, and education sectors that face the axe. Polls during the 2007 election indicated that most Ontarians want Catholic school funding eliminated.
It is immoral to cut essential services that contribute to the well-being of all Ontarians while continuing to fund a non-essential service for a favoured few.
Leonard Baak,
Stittsville
Education Equality in Ontario