Budget committee accepts Ontario’s nurses offer

A provincial offer of $1.2 million and three nurses was accepted Tuesday by the budget committee with amendments to ensure the city wouldn’t be left footing the bill in the future.

The decision – one month after an offer for two Ontario-funded public health nurses was rejected by Mayor Rob Ford and his executive committee – will now go before that same committee, which will decide whether it will go to city council for a vote in September.

Coun. Doug Ford presented a motion at the budget committee’s meeting Tuesday that the nurses would be hired on the condition that the positions would be eliminated if funding were to be cut.

“We accepted it with a clear proviso that we won’t be adding any incremental costs to the city,” committee chair Mike Del Grande told CityNews.ca.

The budget committee voted to accept $1.2 million in one-time funding for bed bug control from the province and $255,000 in on-going funding to support the hiring of three permanent and eight temporary public health nurses to deal with bed bug infestations in the city and its associated health-and-mental-health issues for tenants and homeowners.

But Del Grande said more concrete action such as bed bug exterminators over nurses would have been preferred.

“The ‘I wish’ would’ve been to have more active measures and funding for it,” he said, referring to mattress covers and replacing furniture.  

Ford was blasted last month when he and his council allies turned down $170, 000 from the province to hire two public health nurses – a routine item normally approved – arguing that the city would be on the hook to pay their salaries if the provincial funding was ever cut.

“There was a concern about its permanency,” Del Grande said. “It’s a challenge to add more people when we’re looking at streamlining.”

The city is facing a 2012 deficit of $774 million and is looking at ways to save money.

“Our concern has always been with relation to programs that are funded [that] the funding stops and then the city is blamed for the lack of continuation of any programs,” he said.

Del Grande said that the city received thousands of emails protesting the decision to reject the first offer.

“In spite of what people believe or think, we do have a sensitivity to listen to people who are engaged in the issues of the city.”

“My committee recommended it the last time [to accept the first offer] but it just didn’t materialize for a whole number of reasons,” he added.

He added that a “good working relationship” between Queen’s Park and city hall was important.

Coun. John Filion said while he is glad the offer was accepted by the budget committee, the decision to reject the previous offer was “inconsistent” and that the offers were equally important.

“There is nothing that made the offer different. They decided to put a spin on the first two nurses and take the spin off these three nurses,” he said.

In the previous offer, one of the nurses would have worked with newcomers on disease prevention and the other would have worked in one of the city’s poor neighbourhoods to help residents access medical services.

“It wasn’t based on fact or principle. It all has to do with politics,” Filion said.  

“The first two nurses were for vulnerable populations in poor areas and those people don’t have a political voice,” he said. “These three nurses were for bed bugs and people who have bed bugs are calling their councillors.”

Filion said he intends to bring the initial offer back to the table, but he hasn’t specified a date.

“Hopefully, the ideological warfare that doesn’t make any sense will stop.”