Mayors from 28 major municipalities across Ontario have blasted the province’s plan to cut public health funding, calling on them to put that decision on hold.“Big-city mayors from across Ontario are extremely concerned that the Government of Ontario is engaging in downloading by stealth — implementing funding and governance changes to municipalities without any consultation, after cities have already approved our budgets,” wrote Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie in a statement released Tuesday. “Municipalities are being notified of these changes in a piecemeal fashion through letters to agencies, after municipal budgets have already been passed — giving no time or opportunity for Councils to find efficiencies or economies of scale.”Guthrie chairs the Large Urban Mayors’ Caucus of Ontario (LUMCO), which includes Toronto and Guelph as well as: Ajax, Barrie, Brampton, Brantford, Burlington, Cambridge, Chatham-Kent, Hamilton, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Markham, Milton, Mississauga, Oakville, Oshawa, Ottawa, Pickering, Richmond Hill, St. Catharines, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Vaughan, Waterloo, Whitby and Windsor.The statement, which asks the province to pause the cuts until at least 2020 pending consultation with municipalities, follows news that the province will reduce its responsibility for program costs. In Toronto, the cuts are most severe. Programs previously funded 75 or 100 per cent by the province will see reductions to 60 per cent in 2019 and 2020, and 50 per cent in 2021. In the rest of the province, the cuts will be to 70 per cent in 2019 and 2020, and drop to 60 per cent in 2021 for public health units serving populations over 1 million people.The cuts this year are retroactive to April 1.The province plans to amalgamate existing public health units, reducing the total number to 10 from 35, but it’s still not clear how the boundaries will be redrawn. Toronto Public Health has been told it will remain a stand-al ...
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