Drummond report highlights

Highlights of recommendations of the Drummond report on reforming Ontario's public services:

• The Ontario government must implement all 362 recommended reforms to restrain program spending growth enough to achieve balance by 2017-18.
• Cap growth of health-care spending at 2.5 per cent each year to 2017-18.
• Increase the use of home-based care.
• Make the portion of pharmaceutical costs paid for by seniors rise more sharply as income increases.
• No increase in total compensation for Ontario's doctors, the best paid in the country.
• Consider expanding health coverage to include pharmaceuticals, long-term care and aspects of mental health care.
• Cap growth in primary and secondary education spending at one per cent each year to 2017-18.
• Cap growth in post-secondary education spending (excluding training) at 1.5 per cent each year to 2017-18.
• Put "strong pressure" on the federal government to fund on-reserve First Nations education equal to per-student provincial funding for elementary and secondary education. Failing that, the province itself should step up to provide that funding.
• Cancel the full-day kindergarten program, or delay full implementation from 2014-15 to 2017-18.
• Increase the average class size from 22 to 24 in Grades 9 to 12 and from 24.5 to 26 in Grades 4 to 8.
• Set the cap in class size at 23 in primary grades and eliminate the other requirement that 90 per cent of classes must be 20 or fewer.
• Reject further employer rate increases to the Teachers' Pension Plan beyond the current rate.
• Maintain the existing tuition framework, which allows annual tuition increases of five per cent and consider eliminating a newly minted 30-per-cent tuition rebate.
• Cap growth in social services spending at 0.5 per cent each year to 2017-18.
• Decrease program spending in all other areas by 2.4 per cent each year to 2017-18.
• Higher water bills to recover the full cost of water and wastewater services.
• Begin charging for parking at GO Transit parking lots.
• Eliminate the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit "as quickly as possible."
• Consider having security providers take over police officers' "non-core" duties.
• Negotiate the transfer of responsibility for incarceration for sentences longer than six months to the federal government, up from the current two years.
• Close one of the two casinos in Niagara Falls and one of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation's two head offices.
• Use licence and registration suspensions as a tool to help collect some Provincial Offences Act fines, allow fines to be added to the offender's property tax bill and offset tax refunds against such unpaid fines.