Below are some perspectives on the Ontario Budget of March 23/23. https://budget.ontario.ca/2023/highlights.html
While steady as it goes is a theme of the budget, how do we recon with the need to deploy plans to address the various crisis’ in housing, mental health, homelessness to name a few, with their underlying themes of declining capacity and lack of determination of a whole of government approach needed to dig into a systems approach?
I say a whole systems approach needed if we aim to shift away from perpetuating our siloed and fractured solutions to these issues and the Social Determinants of Health.
(Image: Social Determinants of Health (SDH) components listed such as: race, housing, social safety net, etc, from: (Mikkonen, J., & Raphael, D., 2010). Social Determinant of Health: The Canadian Facts. Toronto: York University School of Health Policy and Management.)
From – Ontario office of the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives
Image: chart from CCPA “shows per capita program spending for each of the 10 provinces in 2021. Ontario is not only below the average of the rest of the provinces; it is dead last” See article: https://monitormag.ca/articles...aimed-to-be-average/
… The 2023-24 budget, released Thursday, spends $190.6 billion on public programs. Last year, the government spent $189.1 billion. In other words, overall program spending is set to go up by less than one per cent.
That’s not enough to keep up with inflation. Or population growth. Or the fact that the pandemic clearly showed us that Ontarians need more and stronger public services, not fewer and weaker ones.
Take these factors into account, and what seems like a small increase in funding is really a cut on a per person, inflation-adjusted basis. … https://monitormag.ca/authors/sheila-block/