Drummond report paints “profoundly gloomy” picture

(Team coverage video updated) Former TD Bank economist Don Drummond’s delivered his prescription to shore up Ontario’s ailing finances.


Finance minister Dwight Duncan says he might not implement every recommendation but he’s looking at them all seriously, and wants to understand their implications.

He says the only thing he says he’s taken off the table is cancelling or delaying all day kindergarten, which Don Drummond says could cost $1.5 billion a year.

Otherwise, kids could see bigger class sizes; the 30 per cent tuition grant for university students could be gone; and we could see higher electricity and water bills and new parking fees for go transit lots.

100 of the 362 recommendations revolve around Ontario’s biggest expense: health care.

Drummond wants to cap spending, but also find efficiencies like moving people out of hospitals and into less expensive clinics if they’re not acutely ill.

He wants to close one of two OLG head offices, and close one of Niagara Falls’ two casinos. Drummond also wants improve efficiency in many services.

He says if Ontario doesn’t take virtually all the measures he’s suggesting, it can’t balance the budget by 2017-18 as the government has promised.

Video: Our team coverage begins with Cristina Tenaglia: