The Ontario Alternative Budget Papers

David Robinson, an economics professor, is dean of the Faculty of Social
Sciences at Laurentian University.

Here is a book that illustrates what is wrong with Ontario politics. It
was developed by a coalition of unions and community action groups
brought together by the Ontario Federation of Labour. It accurately
describes the effect of the first two years of the Harris government. It
presents a coherent, sensible, and workable policy agenda for the
province.

The volume—which owes much of its organization and intellectual
inspiration to the Federal Alternative Budget, now an important annual
publication—is packed with facts and figures. Four papers by Canadian
Auto Workers economist, Jim Stanford, ensure that the economics are
credible. Other papers come from activist/experts in fields from health
care and child care to the environment.

Hugh Mackenzie’s chapter on municipal reform illustrates one
problem—how a book like this can become quickly dated. Harris’s
municipal reforms really were disastrously conceived, as Mackenzie
shows; but since publication, the government has back-peddled and
tinkered almost to the point of tolerability. Old subsidies have been
reintroduced under new names, and terrified municipal managers have been
bought off with a series of concessions. Only a set of long-overdue
reforms that no previous government had the courage to carry through
remain.

Another problem with the book is that the Harris government is
demonized for policies that other parties also followed. Education
funding in Ontario was far behind North American standards when Harris
came to power, and necessary reforms in health care were already being
botched.

The Ontario Alternative Budget Papers will be most useful as a
reference for community leaders, unionists, and activists who are
developing new policies for future elections. The rest of us can only
hope that the alternative budget process will take hold and that its
work will gain much wider circulation.