Chris Scott called it “surreal” being in Queen’s Park yesterday for his first budget as the member of provincial parliament for Sault Ste. Marie.
“It was really cool, especially as a former staffer and long-time follower of politics. It was fun being on the floor and actually being part of it.”
Scott said there are some important line items in the budget that will benefit the area.
One such item is a procurement change through the Protect Ontario Fund that mandates infrastructure projects to use Canadian-made steel, which Scott said will benefit Algoma Steel.
“I think that will be massive for Algoma Steel,” he told SooToday by phone.
Scott said the Darlington small modular reactor project will also benefit Algoma Steel, which will supply roughly 860 metric tons of steel for the structure’s base.
The budget should also help alleviate some of the health-care challenges that Northerners face due to a lack of doctors and other health-care providers, especially in places like Thessalon – which closes its emergency room for a day or two every couple of weeks due to a lack of doctors.
“There's $300 million dedicated to expanding primary care teams and I think that's a big step in the right direction for us,” Scott said.
The Northern Ontario School of Medicine’s will be able to double enrolment to its Medical Doctor program, he said.
The province is also expanding services offered by pharmacy clinics that can help treat the more minor ailments, which will keep more people out of emergency rooms, Scott said.
H.M. Robbins Public School is receiving upgrades and a new addition thanks to $8.9 million from the Ontario Ministry of Education, which was announced last November.
The funding will be used for 26 new student spaces and a retrofit for HM Robbins Public School, which will include a four-room addition to the school and amount to 64 new child-care spaces.
“We've got a lot of families – including my own – where we have non-school aged children and we need to work together to find ways to leverage that," Scott said.
“The 64 spaces that we've got in hand are great, but there's definitely a need. I’m excited to work with our ministers and Mike Nadeau at the DSSAB to get us a few more,” he said.
Scott said the $30 million increase to the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund over the next three years will benefit people in the Sault, although the province announced in January that Muskoka would be included.
Former MPP Michael Mantha for Algoma – Manitoulin, expressed concerns about the change in a news release sent to SooToday in January.
“While I welcome the additional funding for the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, I am concerned about expanding eligibility to the entire District of Muskoka," Mantha said in the release.
"Thousands of businesses, First Nations and communities in Northern Ontario apply to the NOHFC for funding every year, and only a limited number are successful in their bids.
"It doesn’t seem right to me that small communities in Algoma-Manitoulin should be forced to compete against communities that are only an hour-and-half drive away from Toronto," he said.
"When you have funding earmarked for Northern Ontario, it should stay in Northern Ontario. Our communities desperately need investment to grow, prosper and attract new opportunities.
"By expanding access to a limited pool of resources, I fear deserving projects in the North will be overlooked," Mantha said.