Reminder: Dalton McGuinty's 2003 & 2007 Election Promises/Platforms

With the Ontario Provincial Election coming soon on Thursday October 6th, 2011, I felt it only right to display a reminder of your Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberal Party Election Promises and Platforms from both 2003 and 2007, so that you can judge for yourself whether he has fulfilled what he pledged, and essentially, what you voted for in electing him your Premier.

ASIDE: Here's another related story, in case you're interested: List of Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty's Scandals with Details...

Dalton McGuinty's Ontario Liberal Party Election Platform/Promises from 2003

SOURCE: CBC.ca - Ontario Votes 2003 - Party Platforms

HEALTH

1. Pass "Commitment to Medicare Act," making two-tier medicare illegal.
2. Create an independent agency, called the Health Standards Council, to track delivery of medical services.
3. Give provincial auditor the authority to audit all health-care agencies.
4. Set limits for waiting times, starting with cardiac care, cancer care, joint replacements and MRI/CT scans.
5. Stop privatizing MRI/CT clinics and expand public MRI and CT services.
6. Invest in home care, taking first steps to make it an essential part of medicare.
7. Create 150 family health-care teams with doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, pharmacists and other health care professionals; teams would be available to patients around the clock.
8. Add generic drugs to drug formulary as soon as they're approved.
9. Ban ER closures and open 1,600 beds to relieve pressure on ERs.
10. Provide guaranteed multi-year funding for hospitals.
11. Create Seniors Strategy by: cancelling Tories' 15-per-cent increase in nursing home fees; setting high standards for nursing homes; strengthening home care and support for seniors' centres; include seniors health in training.
12. Invest in community mental health agencies and increase supportive housing options.
13. Increase the number of family doctors by increasing quality of working life through family health teams.
14. Make medical tuition more affordable, and provide loan forgiveness for those choosing family medicine.
15. Remove barriers preventing qualified foreign-trained doctors from practising in Ontario.
16. Hire 8,000 nurses, with a goal of 70 per cent working full time.
17. Accelerate development of the Northern Ontario Medical School and Windsor's medical satellite campus.
18. Create Family Medical Leave Act, allowing six weeks of unpaid leave to care for a family member.
19. Take preventative measures to promote healthy living. Strategy includes mandatory daily physical education in schools, support for community sports and recreation, and an aggressive anti-smoking strategy.
20. Provide vaccination to prevent chicken pox.
21. Make Chief Medical Officer of Health an independent officer.

EDUCATION

1. Put $1.6 billion into education, on top of the money already doled out by the Tories in response to the Rozanski report. Goes beyond Rozanski's funding recommendations.
2. Create a cap of 20 students for all JK to Grade 3 classrooms ($375 million over four years).
3. Introduce full-day JK and SK.
4. Scrap private school tax credit and put the resulting revenue, estimated at up to $500 million, back into the public education system.
5. Provide $177 million to put a moratorium on rural school closures.
6. Fix funding formula to address the particular needs of urban and rural schools, i.e. librarians and ESL.
7. Require learning to age 18.
8. Make mandatory the daily teaching of writing, reading and math.
9. Allow parents to choose schools.
10. End labour conflict, by showing respect for teachers by "providing professional support." No concrete measures linked to this.
11. Promise that 75 per cent of students will meet or exceed provincial standards on province-wide tests.
12. Create teaching mentors, who are released from regular duties to share skills with other teachers.
13. Create a Curriculum Council, an independent organization to develop curriculum.
14. Schools to offer child-care and parenting programs.
15. Improve assessment process for special education.
16. Tackle violence with anti-bullying programs, threat hotlines and surveillance cameras.
17. Establish standing committee on education with annual public hearings.
18. Reform Ontario College of Teachers, making it a professional body similar to the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

TAXES

1. Hold the line on taxes, both corporate and personal.
2. Abolish tax credit for private-school tuition.
3. Create tax credit for training employees.
4. Create incentives for production of renewable energy sources.

SOCIAL

1. Build 20,000 affordable housing units over four years, involves matching federal funds.
2. Establish housing allowance program, providing relief for 35,000 families.
3. Revamp protection for tenants and create new rent controls.
4. Make assistance available to 75 per cent of all families with children under four years of age. A household making $75,000 annually would be eligible for $5 a day.
5. Give subsidy of $15 a day for families earning $25,000 or less. Those with low income and now have full subsidy will retain it.
6. Establish college of early childhood educators.
7. Enhance Family Resource Centres and Early Years Centres.
8. Repeal 60-hour workweek.
9. Increase minimum wage to $8.00 over five years, up from $6.85.
10. Double the number of apprentices in Ontario.
11. Increase support to women's shelters.
12. Improve enforcement of family support payments.
13. Create "Rapid Re-employment Training Project."

MUNICIPALITIES

1. Give two cents per litre of provincial tax to municipalities for public transit.
2. Invest in public transit, with a focus on tackling Toronto's gridlock.
3. Invest in highways and roads to improve cross-border trade links.
4. Make transit passes provided by an employer a non-taxable benefit.
5. Fast-track funding to maintain municipal bridges and roads in rural Ontario.
6. Fast-track funding to rural communities to improve water and sewer systems.
7. Work to develop "brownfields," or vacant, toxic, urban industrial sites.
8. Change Land Transfer Tax Rebate program to encourage intensification and discourage urban sprawl.
9. Establish Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt.
10. Will not impose amalgamations.

ENERGY

1. Will not sell off the electricity transmission grid.
2. Will not sell any publicly owned generating stations.
3. Keep electricity power rates frozen at 4.3 cents/kWh until 2006.
4. Phase out coal-burning generating plants by 2007, and replace with cleaner energy sources. Liberals say the 6,100 MW from coal plants can be replaced by 18,002 MW using clean energy sources by 2007.
5. Require all electricity suppliers to get five per cent of their power from renewable sources by 2007, and 10 per cent by 2010.
6. "Reward" those who reduce their energy consumption, and charge more to those who consume more than an average household.
7. Promote "smart meters," which track what time of day the energy is used, and charge accordingly. To be in place by 2006 when the rate cap is lifted.
8. Create program to help consumers cut consumption by five per cent by 2007.
9. Expand generating capacity, such as the station at Niagara Falls.
10. Build transmission link with Manitoba, representing 1,000 MW in a plan to add 30,702 MW to the province's generating capacity.
11. Create incentives for production of renewable energy sources.
12. Reduce red tape for clean-energy projects.
13. Work with businesses, commercial and institutional customers to reduce electricity consumption.
14. Make all publicly owned power entities subject to freedom of information and salary disclosure laws.
15. Create "truly independent watchdog" to regulate prices, utilities, and suppliers.

CRIME

1. Put 1,000 more police on the streets.
2. Enhance police intelligence services to tackle organized crime.
3. Increase number of hate-crime units in the province.
4. Hire 50 new Crown attorneys and 100 parole officers.
5. Establish community-based punishments for first-time young offenders.

RURAL

1. Invest in rural roads and bridges, and fast-track provincial support for improved rural water and sewer infrastructure.
2. Provide $177 million to rural schools, putting a moratorium on closure until the funding formula addresses the particular needs of rural education.
3. Prohibit unionization on farms.
4. Improve safety net for farmers.
5. Improve agricultural markets, in part by demanding use of bio-diesel and ethanol in gas.
6. Help farmers pay for improved "nutrient management."

GOVERNMENT

1. Call inquiry into meat inspection controversy at Aylmer.
2. Have elections on fixed dates.
3. Introduce Internet voting.
4. Require ministers to attend Question Period.
5. Expand powers of provincial auditor to include hospitals, schools, and publicly owned companies.
6. Ban partisan government ads.
7. Stop practice of contracting out services for which there are qualified public servants.
8. Make all government agencies subject to Freedom of Information Act.
9. Establish Citizens' Jury to determine political spending and contribution limits.
10. Will disclose contributions as they come in.

ECONOMIC

1. Balance the budget.
2. Reduce debt "as conditions allow."
3. Give more powers to Ontario's auditor.
4. Toughen securities regulation for publicly traded companies.
5. Build U.S. trade ties, open new global markets.
6. Make investments in sectors such as the auto industry, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, agriculture and food, information technologies, and culture. These would include skills training, research and development, and infrastructure investments.
7. Reduce paperwork for small business.

ENVIRONMENT

1. Implement every recommendation of the Walkerton Inquiry reports.
2. Build a network of water monitoring stations across the province and make the reports available on-line.
3. Pass a law to protect water sources.
4. Stop issuing water-taking permits to exporters while reviewing groundwater supplies.
5. Make companies pay for right to bottle water or use it in industrial slurry.
6. Establish Environmental Youth Corps, creating summer jobs for students to, among other things, test water or conduct home energy audits.
7. Prosecute and fine polluters.
8. Make regulations governing hazardous waste disposal the toughest on the continent.
9. Divert 60 per cent of waste from landfills over five years.
10. Phase in a ban on organic waste in landfills.
11. Increase support for waste diversion programs
12. Work to develop "brownfields," or vacant, toxic, urban industrial sites.
13. Change Land Transfer Tax Rebate program to encourage intensification and discourage urban sprawl.
14. Establish Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt.
15. Give two cents per litre of provincial tax to municipalities for public transit.
16. Invest in public transit, with a focus on tackling Toronto's gridlock.
17. Phase out coal-burning generating plants by 2007, and replace with cleaner energy sources. Liberals say the 6,100 MW from coal plants can be replaced by 18,002 MW using clean energy sources by 2007.
18. Require all electricity suppliers to get five per cent of their power from renewable sources by 2007, and 10 per cent by 2010.
19. "Reward" those who reduce their energy consumption, and charge more to those who consume more than an average household.
20. Promote "smart meters," which track what time of day the energy is used, and charge accordingly. To be in place by 2006 when the rate cap is lifted.
21. Create program to help consumers cut consumption by five per cent by 2007.
22. Create incentives for production of renewable energy sources.
23. Reduce red tape for clean-energy projects.
24. Work with businesses, commercial and institutional customers to reduce electricity consumption.

Dalton McGuinty's Ontario Liberal Party Election Platform/Promises from 2007
SOURCE: CBC.ca - Ontario Votes 2007 - Election Promises

TAXES

1. Expand new home tax credit to cover all first-time home buyers.
2. Eliminate taxes on companies' assets.
3. Double tax credits for seniors earning under $50,000.
4. Tax credit for caring for relatives.
5. Sales tax break on bicycles and helmets; tax credits for families who enroll their children in physical activity. 

HEALTH

1. Create 50 new family health teams, which include physicians and other health-care providers.
2. Hire 9,000 nurses, establish 25 more nurse-led clinics and guarantee jobs for new nursing grads.
3. Establish a strategy to battle chronic diseases, starting with diabetes.
4. Create a provincewide electronic health record by 2015.
5. Reduce wait times, increase cancer screening, adapt to population increases.
6. Create three-year Aging at Home program to help seniors with meals, shopping and other home-care services.
7. Fund other health projects, including increased hospital use, banning trans fats in school cafeterias and implementing a childhood fitness program.
8. Create a dental program for low-income families.

EDUCATION

1. Increase English as a second language (ESL) funding.
2. Increase special needs program funding.
3. Provide online and after school homework help and increase funding for community use of schools program.
4. Fund other public school initiatives.
5. Expand the $300 textbook and technology grant for post-secondary students.
6. Increase the number of apprentices by 25 per cent.
7. Fund other investments in universities, colleges and training, including pushing for longer grace periods before students must start repaying student loans.
8. Create early learning and full-day pre-school programs.

SOCIAL SERVICES

1. Fund other social services and housing investments, including scheduled continuing increases to the Ontario Child Benefit to $1,100 per child by 2011.
2. Upload from the municipalities the costs of the Ontario Disability Support payments and the Ontario Drug Benefit Plan by 2012.

CRIME

1. Hire 1,000 new municipal and provincial police officers; invest in police operations including the anti-gang and guns strategy; fund youth initiatives to prevent youth crime.

ENVIRONMENT

1. Invest in a variety of climate change initiatives, including cleaning up Great Lakes and Lake Simcoe, closing all coal-fired power plants by 2014 and banning cosmetic pesticides provincewide.

ECONOMY

1. Invest in the Next Generations Job Fund, a strategy to promote economic growth.
2. Support tourism industry initiatives.
3. Support the television and film industries.
4. Promote economic development in rural, eastern and northern Ontario.

MISC.

1. Other ministry investments.

So, what do you think? Has Dalton McGuinty lived up to your expectations? Do you feel that he has fulfilled all of his Promises and Platforms from his past 2 terms as the Premier of Ontario?

Please feel free to submit your comment and let our readers know your thoughts on Premier McGuinty's performance.

Let's make an informed decision next October, Ontario!

--jackandcokewithalime


(Image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Dalton_McGuinty_2007.JPG by Sherurcij on Wikipedia
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