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Dec.5 - Dec.12, 2004 |
Dalton McGuinty reflects back
Ontario premier experienced 12 months of surprises and achievements during first year
By Angelo Persichilli
Originally Published: 2004-10-24
It was one year ago these days that Dalton McGuinty became premier of Ontario. After 12 months filled with surprises, achievements and failures, the new premier of this province talks about his experience at the top of the most powerful Canadian province and his plans for the future.
In an interview to Tandem-Corriere Canadese, the premier talks about his achievements in education and health care, the "problem" of the fiscal imbalance with Ottawa and the pharmacare plan he considers still alive. If people are not happy, he believes it is only because he needs better communication with them.
After 12 months at the helm of this province, how do you feel?
"Very good. We are doing something new and I think absolutely essential if you are going to govern effectively at the beginning of the new century. We have issued our first annual progress report. It's called 'Getting results for Ontario', it's all about reporting our plans to deliver in three major areas: success for students, better health care and a strong economy. We've described our accomplishments to date in those areas, and set our plans for the coming years."
Can you be more specific?
"In education we are telling people what we are after is to bring students' achievement levels up and high school dropout rates down. We have already started doing something to achieve those goals."
What is it?
"We have smaller classes since September in 1,300 schools, 1,100 new teachers on the job, and we have 8,000 specially trained lead teachers, two per elementary school in Ontario, and they have special skills in literacy and math."
Is it fair to say that the greatest success of your government was achieved in education?
"I think we've made some more immediate changes right into the classroom. It takes longer to do the kind of things we want to do with health care. In this sector we talk about shorter waits, more families with access to primary care, and more illness prevention. And this takes a bit longer. But we have, for example, funded 21,000 more beds in senior care this year, we have increased standards in our nursing homes so nurses have to be on duty 24/7, and guests are entitled to at least two baths per week. We have made funding available for hospitals to hire about 1,000 more full-time nurses, and we have also increased volumes of cardiac care, cataract care, hips and knees and more. We are very proud of our accomplishments."
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