{"id":25827,"date":"2020-01-31T19:50:32","date_gmt":"2020-02-01T00:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25827"},"modified":"2020-01-31T19:50:41","modified_gmt":"2020-02-01T00:50:41","slug":"health-care-red-tape-among-top-priorities-addressed-at-budget-consultation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/health-care-red-tape-among-top-priorities-addressed-at-budget-consultation\/","title":{"rendered":"Health Care, red tape among top priorities addressed at Budget consultation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over 70 people gathered at the Aurora Cultural Centre on\nTuesday night to participate in a community budget consultation hosted by\nMinister of Finance Rod Phillips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deputy Premier Christine Elliot and MPP Michael Parsa\nwere also present and the trio listened to 27 voices and a wide range of issues.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funding, healthcare priorities, and red tape were among\nthe several concerns presented by people from a variety of industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president and CEO of a film production company shared\nhow a bureaucratic delay cost him time and money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe biggest hindrance in the film industry is red tape.\nTo qualify for a production, you have to get a certificate from ONBC, but these\ncertificates are constantly being held up just because of the inefficiency in\nthe system. It took ONBC six months to give me a certificate because of which I\npaid in excess of $10,000 to the bank in the form of interest. I could have\nused that money to hire writers or start a new production,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christina Bisanz, CEO of CHATS, a community and home\nassistance service for seniors, presented her case for better elderly care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe provide support to over 8,500 older adults and\ncaregivers throughout York Region,\u201d she said. \u201cThe good news is that people are\nliving longer, but, unfortunately, they are also living longer with more\ncomplex health and mental health care needs. Home and community care is a key\npart of the solution to reduce the demand for long term care homes. This budget\nprovides the government an opportunity to strategically invest in rebalancing\nthe health care system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLast year, 18,000 people living in long term care homes\ncould have continued to live at home and their communities if proper support\nwas available and properly funded,\u201d she added, imploring the government to also\nlook into expanding dental care for older adults and to invest in\ntransportation services specifically for the frail elderly and those with\ncognitive impairments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clovis Grant, CEO of 360 Kids, a youth organization in York\nRegion, spoke to the dearth of services for homeless youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThirty years ago, there was no service for homeless\nyouth in York Region, and part of the belief was that there are no homeless\nyouth in York Region. Today, we serve 3,500 young people in a variety of\nprograms. Homelessness is a $7 billion per year problem in Canada, and there is\nnot enough focus on earlier intervening. I ask for greater investments in\norganizations like ours doing this work. We have not seen an increase in\nprovincial funding for 15 years,\u201d he stated. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each speaker took their turn to speak as the ministers\nlistened in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minister Phillips assured the audience that each\nindividual story is important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is the fourth of 30 sessions, so we\u2019ll keep\nlistening to what people say. Tonight, we heard similar concerns that people\nhave. People concerned about government wasting money, people concerned about\ngovernment not spending enough money, people concerned about businesses not\nbeing able to be successful so that they can pay taxes so the government has\nthe money. The themes start to link together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that they make decisions based on their best\njudgments, and that judgment is affected by hearing these individual stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is so valuable to help us do a better job of running the government. If we can do a better job of making sure businesses and people are successful so they can be productive, then we are going to be able to afford the things that people need. Right now, we are listening and by the end of March, we will present our budget and do our best to make sure it reflects the things we heard today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Kinjal Dagli Shah <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over 70 people gathered at the Aurora Cultural Centre on Tuesday night to participate in a community budget consultation hosted by Minister of Finance Rod Phillips. Deputy Premier Christine Elliot and MPP Michael Parsa were also present and the trio listened to 27 voices and a wide range of issues. Funding, healthcare priorities, and red […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25810,"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":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/2020-01-30-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Iz","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 13:15:11","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\/25827","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=25827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}