Today, our government unveiled a five-year Open Ontario Plan that will create jobs and build a stronger economy. The choices we make during the next five years will be decisive in the life of our province. Growing our economy — growing stronger — requires Ontario to be open to change, open to opportunities and open to our new world.
“Our government has a plan to open Ontario to new opportunities, new jobs, and new growth,” said Yasir Naqvi, MPP Ottawa Centre. “We’ll make Ontario a North American leader in clean-water technology, expand post-secondary education, and create an online university to help Ontarians get the training they need for the good jobs of the future.”
The plan was unveiled today in a Speech from the Throne opening the second session of Ontario’s 39th parliament. Highlights include:
- A new Water Opportunities Act to take advantage of the province’s expertise in clean-water technology to create more, good jobs for Ontario families
- 20,000 more student spaces in colleges and universities this year
- A new Ontario Online Institute to give students access to the best professors in top university programs from their home computers
- New legislation to improve accountability in our publicly-funded health care system
- Improving services for patients by encouraging health professionals to work together
- Capitalizing on northwestern Ontario’s chromite deposits, while working with Northerners and Aboriginal communities and continuing to protect half of the northern Boreal Forest (chromite is a key ingredient in stainless steel)
The five-year plan includes several initiatives already underway:
- A tax reform package, which will create nearly 600,000 new Ontario jobs
- The Green Energy Act, which will create up to 50,000 jobs
- $32-billion investment in roads, bridges, public transit and energy retrofits for schools that is creating and sustaining over 300,000 jobs
- Full-day learning for four- and five-year olds, starting at schools across the province this September
- A strategy to make Toronto one of the world’s leading financial centres
For more information, visit www.ontario.ca/openontario. The Speech from the Throne can be viewed online at http://www.premier.gov.on.ca/news/throneSpeech.php.
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Media Contact:
Jackie Choquette
Office of Yasir Naqvi, MPP
613-722-6414