Ontario underspending on social services by $3.7B: watchdog

The thing that frustrates me is my dad votes conservative, they underfund things and withheld specific health funding while attacking the rights of nurses, then he complains it takes forever to see a doctor and flies to Mexico and pays there.

Except his children can't just fly to Mexico, we're stuck with it.

It's so frustrating that they're allowed to withhold this funding while shelling out hundreds of millions to private companies to sell beer and liquor at gas stations.

Drug Fraud needs those funds to bribe his buddies tho!

Not only social services. The Ford government also underspent during the pandemic, when doctors and nurses were begging for more resources.

Let's not forget underspending on education, too.

You know where there's a "spare no expense" attitude, though? When it comes to spending paying off his business partners buddies.

But it's ok, guys. Let's keep voting for a conservative premier, and we'll just blame Trudeau for all the failings that come as a result. /s

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The Ontario government has allocated $3.7 billion less than what's needed to fund existing programs and its announced commitments in children, community and social services, the province's financial watchdog said in a report released Wednesday.

The office says the change is due to a projected growth in the number of people on the program, but is also under the assumption OW rates will stay frozen at the same level they've been at since 2018.

Funding also goes toward individuals and families, which includes targeted support for adults, youth and children with disabilities, victims of violence and Indigenous peoples.

The office assumes there will be no growth in the number of clients served in the program given historical trends, but says that contributed to a "growing waitlist" for supportive living that swelled from 18,152 in 2017-18 to 27,028 in 2022-23.

In a statement, the Ontario Greens Leader Mike Schreiner called the Doug Ford government's "utter failure" to adequately fund social services across the province a "total disgrace."

It's time for the government to wake up, stop wasting a billion dollars on booze, and allocate those resources to the social services Ontarians need."

The original article contains 685 words, the summary contains 189 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!