Highlights of Drummond report

Highlights of recommendations of the Drummond report on reforming Ontario’s public services:

— The Ontario government must implement all 362 recommended reforms to restrain program spending growth enough to achieve balance by 2017-18

— Cap growth of health-care spending at 2.5 per cent each year to 2017-18

— Increase the use of home-based care

— Make the portion of pharmaceutical costs paid for by seniors rise more sharply as income increases

— No increase in total compensation for Ontario’s doctors, the best paid in the country

— Consider expanding health coverage to include pharmaceuticals, long-term care and aspects of mental health care

— Cap growth in primary and secondary education spending at one per cent each year to 2017-18

— Cap growth in post-secondary education spending (excluding training) at 1.5 per cent each year to 2017-18

— Put “strong pressure” on the federal government to fund on-reserve First Nations education equal to per-student provincial funding for elementary and secondary education. Failing that, the province itself should step up to provide that funding.

— Cancel the full-day kindergarten program, or delay full implementation from 2014-15 to 2017-18

— Increase the average class size from 22 to 24 in Grades 9 to 12 and from 24.5 to 26 in Grades 4 to 8

— Set the cap in class size at 23 in primary grades and eliminate the other requirement that 90 per cent of classes must be 20 or fewer

— Reject further employer rate increases to the Teachers’ Pension Plan beyond the current rate

— Maintain the existing tuition framework, which allows annual tuition increases of five per cent and consider eliminating a newly minted 30-per-cent tuition rebate

— Cap growth in social services spending at 0.5 per cent each year to 2017-18

— Decrease program spending in all other areas by 2.4 per cent each year to 2017-18

— Higher water bills to recover the full cost of water and wastewater services

— Begin charging for parking at GO Transit parking lots

— Eliminate the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit “as quickly as possible”

— Consider having security providers take over police officers’ “non-core” duties

— Negotiate the transfer of responsibility for incarceration for sentences longer than six months to the federal government, up from the current two years

— Close one of the two casinos in Niagara Falls and one of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation’s two head offices

— Use licence and registration suspensions as a tool to help collect some Provincial Offences Act fines, allow fines to be added to the offender’s property tax bill and offset tax refunds against such unpaid fines

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