The president of the Ontario Public Service
Employees Union says the findings and recommendations of the
Commission on Quality Public Services and Tax Fairness have
addressed fundamental public policy and taxation issues in ways that
the Drummond Commission and the recent provincial budget failed to
do.
“I warmly applaud the results contained in the
Interim Report of the Commission on Quality Public Service and Tax
Fairness,” said OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas. ”In my view,
the Commission went about its work dedicated to learn what the
people of Ontario expect in the public services on which they rely
upon and for which they pay for. The same can’t be said about the
work of the Drummond Commission or the outcomes of the recent
provincial budget.”
Thomas was commenting on today’s release of the
findings and recommendation of the public services commission, which
visited a dozen cities around the province and collected testimony
and evidence from more than 1,000 providers and users of public
services, experts on progressive tax reform, public policy planners
and ordinary citizens who told the commission they value public
services they receive in their day-to-day lives.
The 96-page interim report, written by commission
chair Judy Wasylycia-Leis, a former federal Member of Parliament,
contains 16 recommendations on ways that Ontario can maintain
quality public services – despite per capita spending that ranks it
third last among Canadian jurisdictions – by implementing measures
to increase funding through moderate tax reform.
Thomas said he was especially attracted to
recommendations that call for restoring the corporate tax rate to 14
per cent, a move that would generate $2.5 billion in revenue, and a
second recommendation contained in the interim report that a further
$1.8 billion could be raised by reversing the elimination of
corporate capital tax.
“Ontario does not have a spending problem,” said
Thomas, “Ontario has a revenue problem that could be easily
addressed. Don Drummond was told not to look at that side of the
ledger and the recent provincial budget demonstrated that the
McGuinty government prefers to ignore ways by which we might
increase revenues. The sad result of this indifference is that the
people of Ontario are the ones who really suffer as they watch their
public services decline.”
Thomas paid tribute to the hundreds of OPSEU members
who attended the public hearings and town hall meetings conducted by
the commission on its tour of Ontario. Many of those members made
presentations to the commission, while hundreds of others attended
as a demonstration of their support for the maintenance of quality
public services.
“OPSEU members did their union proud by supporting
the work of the commission and, in many cases, stepping forward with
their own stories from the frontlines. I salute their efforts.”
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