Activist agenda for second term
TheStar.com – comment/editorial – Activist agenda for second term
November 26, 2007
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has set the bar high for his second term in office after easily winning the Oct. 10 election. When his cabinet was sworn in late last month, he declared that “ours is a government of activists” and pledged “to lead our great province forward … by bringing people together.”
The first test of McGuinty’s progressive resolve will come Thursday in the Speech from the Throne, which will lay out the government’s agenda for the province over the next several years.
In it, McGuinty should step out from the sturdy managerial style that marked his first term in office, and establish his credentials as a bold and forward-thinking leader who is ready to tackle the most pressing issues facing Ontario.
Having set the province back on solid footing during his first term, McGuinty should use the throne speech to set out ambitious plans to slash poverty rates, help overstretched cities and continue to restore public confidence in the province’s health-care and education systems. He also should dispel concerns about second-term inertia by setting to work quickly on these key priorities.
At the top of McGuinty’s to-do list should be making a fast start on setting firm poverty reduction targets and holding his government to them, a key Liberal election promise.
The premier took a promising first step last month when he appointed Children and Youth Services Minister Deb Matthews to chair a new cabinet committee to champion an anti-poverty agenda. But his failure so far to fill the rest of the committee seats is unsettling, and hopefully not an omen of things to come on this critical issue. Appointing senior cabinet ministers to the committee without delay would send an unmistakable signal that reducing poverty is a top priority.
McGuinty also should fill in more details on his election promises to offer dental coverage to low-income Ontarians and create a long-term strategy on affordable housing. He should accelerate the gradual phasing-in of both the new Ontario child benefit and the rise in the minimum wage to $10.25 an hour, two key anti-poverty measures that were announced in the spring budget. And he must keep pressing Ottawa to reform the employment insurance system so more jobless Ontario workers qualify for benefits.
On the crucial cities agenda, McGuinty needs to signal his willingness to take back more of the costs that were unfairly downloaded on municipalities in the 1990s by the previous Conservative government. He has already taken a step in the right direction by agreeing to pay the full costs of the provincial disability support program and drug benefits for social assistance recipients. But the Liberal government should be prepared to do more for cash-strapped cities as soon as a provincial panel on downloading reports back early in the new year.
McGuinty also should continue to build on the steady progress he has already made on other critical files. He has made public education one of his top priorities and promised during the election to phase in full-day kindergarten. But he still needs to address lingering complaints that schools do not have enough money to cover basic costs.
And he must accelerate plans to roll out electronic health records, and further cut wait times for key surgeries and medical procedures, to increase efficiency in the public health-care system.
If Ontarians were content over the last four years with McGuinty’s slow-and-steady program of rebuilding key public services that were decimated by the previous Conservative government, they will be more demanding taskmasters this time around.
The opposition parties, too, will be eager to hold McGuinty to account, although Conservative Leader John Tory’s failure to win a seat in the Legislature puts his party at a disadvantage.
All eyes are now on McGuinty. If he truly wants to be viewed as an activist premier, he will have to get down to work quickly.
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