Protecting Ontario’s water supplies, re-establishing rent control and putting more police officers on the streets: the second part of the Liberal Party’s election platform was released this week.
Entitled “Growing Strong Communities,” the document makes many promises. “This is our plan to strengthen Ontario communities and to help them thrive. We will clean up our air and water. We will protect our greenspaces and make our streets safer,” it reads.
But the document, along with an earlier platform on education, makes no mention of higher learning.
“It was disappointing that there wasn’t more to say about post-secondary education. What it does say is very vague and non-committal,” said Andrew Bennett, a legislative assistant in the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. “It’s not really a policy document,” he added, noting that “the platforms we put out [before the Progressive Conservatives were elected] had content on post-secondary, had spending information.”
The platform document focuses on planning, crime and growth issues. In an effort to fight smog, which the Liberals blame for killing 1,900 Ontarians per year, the document calls for the shutdown of coal-fired generating stations in the province and an increase in generation at Niagara Falls. The Liberals’ plan also pledges to increase power conservation and mandate ethanol content in gasoline and diesel fuel.
The platform also calls for protection of Ontario’s water supplies and will restrict bulk water shipments. Also on the environmental front, the plan pledges to divert 60 per cent of Ontario’s waste into recycling programmes.
The Grits pledge to divert two cents from each dollar of gasoline tax into public transport, build 20,000 affordable housing units and re-introduce rent control. A permanent greenbelt covering 600,000 acres would be established around the Greater Toronto Area to discourage sprawl, the document said.
On law-and-order issues, the plan said the governing Progressive Conservatives’ “main contribution to fighting crime has been making the world safe from squeegee kids.” The Liberals promise to hire 1,000 new police officers, 100 probation officers and 50 Crown Prosecutors, and say they will beef up police intelligence services to combat criminal gangs. Also on offer is a programme to punish deadbeat parents who have fallen behind in their child-support payments by posting their pictures on the Internet.
Marie Bountrogianni, the Liberal education critic, said the platform makes no mention of post-secondary issues for strategic reasons. Higher education “will be in our next one, which will be in January…February at the latest,” she said.
But she maintained the Liberals haven’t been silent on university issues. “We know now that more students than the government estimated are entering colleges and universities,” she added.
“About a year ago we came out for pre-paid tuition… And we will be doubling the graduate scholarship [the OGS].”
Bountrogianni’s office pointed to a vigorous debate yesterday in the Ontario legislature as proof of the Liberals’ work on post-secondary education.
“The reason there are fewer students in Ontario today applying for student assistance is because you changed the rules on them. You’ve narrowed the grounds for eligibility. We have the toughest eligibility rules in all of Canada because of changes that you brought in on your watch,” said Dalton McGuinty, the Liberal leader, in a debate with Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Dianne Cunningham.
Cunningham countered by saying Ontario “has greatly increased annual expenditures on student financial assistance.
“We have in fact introduced many other options for students. We have a set-aside at our universities. There’s $126 million every year for students who may in fact have approached OSAP and have OSAP or have not got OSAP; there is another alternative. The Aiming for the Top Scholarships, $26 million to students this year; it will grow to $35 million. The Ontario Student Opportunity Trust Fund, $600 million in endowments. The list goes on,” Cunningham said.
Bennett, the ministry spokesperson, said the 40 per cent decline in OSAP applications was explainable. “We think it’s a combination of those two programs [Aiming for the Top and the Ontario Student Opportunity Trust Fund] and a stronger economy.” Bennett said the provincial government mandates that “30 per cent of tuition increases go to student aid,” meaning that more bursaries—which do not have to be repaid by students—are available.
The Progressive Conservatives intend to increase OSAP spending “as much as needed” to fund the double cohort, Bennett said.
