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<\/p>\n(January 24, 2023)<\/p>\n
By: CBC News<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ontario has begun consultations for the 2023 provincial budget, with the standing committee of Finance and Economic affairs listening to multiple Windsor-Essex region groups requests for funding.<\/p>\n
Windsor-Essex Chamber of Commerce, Community Living Essex County and a Windsor-representative of the Ontario Health Coalition were at the meeting asking for additional funding from this year’s budget.<\/p>\n
Shirley Roebuck is on the board of directors for the Ontario Health Coalition and is based in the Windsor-Essex region. She said her organization requested Ontario’s health-care system be properly funded.<\/p>\n
“We felt that health care should be funded to the level of other provinces in Canada as presently we’re\u00a0last among hospital funding per capita and hospital funding per percentage of [gross domestic product],” Roebuck said.<\/p>\n
“We’re not asking for extra money, we’re asking to be funded to a satisfactory level.”<\/p>\n
Roebuck said her organization has issues with how the Ford government has handled the health-care system crisis and that more funding needs to be put toward a “vibrant, energetic, progressive public health-care system.”<\/p>\n
She said currently the hospitals are in chaos from staffing shortages, there are no beds for patients and home-care is “in shambles.”<\/p>\n
“The alternative to privatization of our health care is…\u00a0for the government to come to the table to create a realistic and rational staffing plan,” she said.<\/p>\n
Corey Dalgleish, director of Community Living Essex County, said ongoing staffing shortages have made it impossible to fully reopen their services to the public and has had a “profoundly negative impact on people we serve across Essex County.”<\/p>\n
Community Living Essex is a non-profit that assists people with disabilities.<\/p>\n
At the budget consultation Dalgleish said he asked for more funding to provide training and incentive for developmental service workers.<\/p>\n
Dalgleish said when the pandemic began Community Living Essex lost a lot of employees who had transferable health-care skills.<\/p>\n
“We just have not seen the influx of employees coming back,” he said.<\/p>\n
CEO of Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce Rakesh Naidu says businesses in the region “will be facing some headwinds” in 2023.<\/p>\n
He said the chamber of commerce is asking for funding to support businesses struggling with higher employee costs.<\/p>\n
Naidu says an impending minimum wage raise is one of those challenges, as it will “increase the burden” on small businesses and may lead them to close.<\/p>\n
“We know that the average wage in Windsor-Essex is $26 per hour and that’s a significant number. If we were to go for another increase in October as is the plan\u2026 that will further increase the burden on employers,” he said.<\/p>\n
He said he is concerned “another wage increase will push businesses that are barely hanging in there to the edge.”<\/p>\n