{"id":17738,"date":"2017-07-05T16:43:23","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T20:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=17738"},"modified":"2017-07-05T16:43:23","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T20:43:23","slug":"view-from-queens-park-oh-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/view-from-queens-park-oh-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"VIEW FROM QUEEN’S PARK: Oh, Canada!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chris Ballard, MPP
\nNewmarket-Aurora<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh Canada! It was a wonderful 150th birthday bash this past weekend. I hope you had a chance to join in the celebrations. I can\u2019t recall more enthusiastic crowds. Lots of folk wearing red and white, plenty of flag waving and loud cheers for a great country.
\nAnd Canada deserves it. You deserve it, because \u2013 together \u2013 we have built a great country, perhaps the greatest.
\n\u201cCanada has a leading claim to being \u2026 the most successful country on the planet, and the best place to be an average citizen, anywhere, ever,\u201d says the Globe and Mail.
\nOh Canada! to that.
\nAnother recent Globe and Mail headline captures more good news: \u201cHappy birthday Canada. Your gift is an economy on the cusp of a mini-boom \u2013 more jobs, low inflation and rising optimism among businesses.\u201d
\nWhen I was considering running for Member of Provincial Parliament I asked residents of our community what kind of society they wanted to build right here in Newmarket-Aurora. This still remains my fundamental question, not just about our riding, but also about our province.
\n\u201cWhat kind of Ontario do we want to build? What kind of society do we want to leave our children?\u201d
\nThe world is changing. How we work, how we learn, where we live \u2026 it\u2019s all changing. And let\u2019s be honest \u2013 it\u2019s creating some anxiety. Not everyone is benefitting from our expanding economy and we have a long way to go to address the dreadful way Indigenous nations have been treated.
\nMy time at Queen\u2019s Park has made one thing crystal clear: there are two, very distinct visions for Ontario.
\nThere\u2019s one that our government is pursuing: a province that is inclusive and fair and works hard to provide everyone with the opportunity to become the best they can be.
\nIt\u2019s a vision that believes in the inherent goodness of people; a vision that says we are stronger when we stand together; and that, together, we can weather any storm that a changing world throws at us \u2013 and emerge stronger.
\nOur vision is for a society that brings people together in times of anxiety and challenge. What kind of Ontario do you want to see?
\nI want a place everyone can call home, where people can put down roots, just like my wife, Audrey, and I did here in Newmarket-Aurora close to 30 years ago; where we chose to raise our three children; because we loved the community \u2013 its people, its history and its attitude.
\nI believe you can measure the priorities of a government by what it chooses to invest in.
\nTalk is cheap. Action speaks. Our government is delivering the change people want in our society by investing in the people of Ontario \u2013 in the people of Newmarket-Aurora. Whether it be jobs, health care, education, transit or environment, we are focused on making your life easier. Let me give you a few examples from our most recent budget \u2013 a budget that, as promised, is balanced.
\nWe\u2019ve introduced pharmacare \u2013 providing full coverage of prescription medications for everyone under 25. I believe this will be the catalyst for a national program.
\nWe\u2019re improving local healthcare by delivering an additional $5.7 million to expand service and shorten wait times at Southlake Regional Hospital. This funding takes our commitment to Southlake to $286-million a year.
\nWe\u2019re making housing more affordable by implementing Ontario\u2019s Fair Housing Plan to increase predictability and affordability for homebuyers and renters.
\nWe\u2019re investing in education by funding $800 million in capital projects and school renewals in York Region, including schools in Aurora and Newmarket, while delivering free tuition for over 210,000 post-secondary students across Ontario.
\nLocally, I\u2019ve pushed hard on other issues important to you. We\u2019re building more transit: Metrolinx has approved a Mulock Drive GO Train station that will give us direct access to and from Union Station. (The opposition\u2019s transportation critic was criticizing this \u2013 but the residents of this riding sure aren\u2019t!)
\nWe\u2019re helping make your voice heard regionally by passing legislation to democratically elect the York Region Chair. That was my first Private Member\u2019s Bill and it was adopted as part of a larger government bill.
\nWe\u2019re making our community more liveable through better urban planning by making changes to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) that will give local residents more say in how their communities grow. This is an issue I identified years ago as a Town Councillor in Aurora. Rehabilitating the OMB was one of the issues that motivated me to run provincially.
\nWe are protecting the beautiful Oak Ridges Moraine. I know how important the Moraine is to folks in this riding and how important the environment is in general. We are protecting MORE green space through the legislation.
\nThe final word to the Globe and Mail: \u201cMore than a hundred years ago, Sir Wilfrid Laurier said that Canada would one day be the star toward which all those who love progress and freedom would come. It was long taken as an absurd boast, but like the words of the anthem, it has turned out to be true. Around the world, people dream of a place like this. To live here is to be the recipient of incredible good fortune. It also makes you the trustee of a living thing that must be preserved, expanded, improved and enriched \u2013 and passed on to the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh Canada! indeed.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chris Ballard, MPP Newmarket-Aurora Oh Canada! It was a wonderful 150th birthday bash this past weekend. I hope you had a chance to join in the celebrations. I can\u2019t recall more enthusiastic crowds. Lots of folk wearing red and white, plenty of flag waving and loud cheers for a great country. And Canada deserves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4C6","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 08:30:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}