The Drummond Report on the very negative fiscal situation in which the province finds itself still has county councillors playing a game of wait and see.
Administration, finance, and personnel committee chairman John Green told county council Feb. 23 there is not much use in even commenting on a 20 page report from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario that lists copious numbers of Drummond’s recommendations that might have an effect on municipalities across the province.
“Until the government sets its budget, there’s not much for us to discuss,” Green said.
He added that speculation on what the provincial government actually does with the report remains a mystery.
Drummond, an economist, was hired by Premier Dalton McGuinty over a year ago to recommend ways to guide the province out of a fiscal situation where the province is in a $16 billion a year deficit. It could force the province’s debt up to over $400 billion in a few years if nothing was done.
Even before the report was released, groups from health and education had already started to plead that they are special cases.
McGuinty responded to one plea nearly immediately. Drummond recommended the province drop its all day kindergarten program scheduled to be fully implemented in September. McGuinty immediately rejected that recommendation.
Green said of a municipality’s ability to argue for continued cash flow, “It’s hard to fight with a shadow.”
County Warden Chris White added that AMO, and its counterpart, the Rural Ontario Municipal Association that met earlier this week in Toronto, will likely offer comments once the provincial budget it passed. That is usually done around the end of March.
White added that everything “depends on what comes foreward in the budget.”
He added, “The premier announces every day what he’s not doing.”
