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The interest on Ontario's debt -- and how one educational reform could affect it.

2/18/2012

5 Comments

 
The following interesting graphic shows very clearly where Ontario's money comes from and where it goes.  On the red side of the graphic at the bottom, you can see the amount that goes up in smoke in interest on Ontario's debt:  $10.3 billion in the past year alone.  That figure grows every year Ontario runs a deficit.

The growth in interest payments must be offset with revenue increases, expenditure control (program cuts), or new debt.  When budget balance is achieved through new debt, as it is now, Ontario's annual interest payments continue to grow.  Ontario's interest rates will also rise in that scenario as the province's lenders demand higher rates to counter the risk of our diminishing creditworthiness.

The interest on Ontario's debt is money that could have gone into program spending or tax relief each and every year if the province had been running balanced budgets.  It is a figure that the government's own 2011-12 budget projections predict will be $16.3 billion in 2017-18.  The Drummond Report predicts the interest on Ontario's debt will reach $19.7 billion in 2017-18 under the status quo scenario.

Eliminating Catholic school funding and the massive duplication and overlap it entails will take a significant bite out of Ontario's deficit.  It won't singlehandedly slay the deficit, but it is a reform that will help arrest and eventually reverse the growth in the amount of money lost to interest on Ontario's debt every year.

Ontario is paying for sectarian Catholic education, amongst other things, with borrowed money.  It has been doing so for some time.  As a result, the annual loss of provincial revenue to interest on our debt represents a significant opportunity cost.  That loss is already impacting our ability to adequately fund the programs that are truly essential:  those that alleviate pain and suffering, contribute to a well educated workforce, and help the genuinely disadvantaged among us.  Government inaction on the deficit will only worsen those impacts.

The Ontario government has already rejected the most significant of the education reforms proposed in the Drummond Report.  As Drummond warned, however, alternatives must then be proposed to produce equivalent savings.

We propose the amalgamation of Ontario's public and Catholic school systems into a single public school system for each official language.  Ontario needs to embrace this idea now more than ever.
Picture
Click to enlarge at source (National Post, 2012-02-15).
5 Comments

Now is the time to protect what is really important -- and to be willing to part with what is not.

2/12/2012

9 Comments

 

Friends.  This Wednesday, Feb 15th, is the scheduled release date for the Drummond report.   Mr. Drummond was tasked with examining all areas of government spending, identifying unnecessary and duplicate expenditures.  It is hard to imagine that he could miss the massive duplication and overlap in our school system.  We are confident that any competent and thorough examination of provincial programs would not fail to notice this and point it out.

Of greater concern to us than the possibility the waste in our education system could be overlooked is the relative certainty that Dalton McGuinty and company will summarily reject any recommendation to deal with it.  He has already said, at least twice that we know of, that he will not even consider any recommendation to eliminate public funding for Catholic separate schools.  That is unfortunate, as it all but ensures that austerity measures affecting our truly essential services will cut deeper than necessary.  There will be unnecessary pain.

Eliminating public funding for Catholic schools would not genuinely hurt anyone.  It would only result in Ontario Catholics having to take personal responsibility for the religious upbringing of their children.  It would only result in them being treated the same as every one of us who is not an Ontario Catholic.  Not eliminating that funding, however, will guarantee greater pain elsewhere -- probably in services that families cannot easily provide on their own.

Be alert for letter opportunities this week and beyond.  If you’ve never written letters to the editor, now is a good time to start.  See our
letters page for ideas.  The Drummond report will be very big news.  Civil servants could face layoffs, wage freezes, unpaid days off, or outsourcing.  They might be interested to know that as this happens, unnecessary spending on religious  schools for a single favoured faith continues.  Vested interests will be lobbying furiously as the government decides where the axe will fall.  We need to point out the difference between essential and non-essential programs at every opportunity.  We need to point out that public funding for Catholic schools is not essential!

Please rise to the challenge.  It is time fairness and fiscal responsibility came to education in Ontario.

Education Equality in Ontario
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