The Premier, along with Liberal MPPs and Cabinet Ministers have been huddling at the Benmiller Inn outside Goderich to plot the course of the Liberal agenda this fall in the retreat chaired by Huron-Bruce MPP Carol Mitchell.
In a news conference the Premier spoke of the newly-minted contract agreement with the province’s doctors, and issues centering on infrastructure funding.
McGuinty tells Bayshore Broadcasting News that mayors in Huron-Bruce and across the province have to realize there is a trade-off between improving roads, bridges and sewers, and making sure levels of health-care and education are adequate.
McGuinty repeats that his government has done more to fund Ontario municipalities in the last five years than the former PC government did in the previous eight.
He says his government has uploaded much of what the former Harris and Eves governments had downloaded onto municipalities including land-ambulance costs, the gasoline tax and certain health care plans.
McGuinty repeats his call for fairness from Ottawa in infrastructure funding.
The Premier says the federal government must sit with the province to work out an equitable formula for such transfers.
McGuinty says Ontario lags far behind other provinces in federal transfers for upgrades and renewal of crumbling municipal infrastructure.
