Wellesley Institute

Wellesley Institute works in research and policy to improve health and health equity in the GTA through action on the social determinants of health.

Home Blog Building Healthy Communities Ontario budget 2010 wrap-up: Plenty of criticism from different groups

Ontario budget 2010 wrap-up: Plenty of criticism from different groups

Less than 24 hours after it was released, Ontario’s 2010 provincial budget has been generating a significant amount of criticism. Economist Hugh Mackenzie of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says that the budget “misses the point on economic reform”, putting deficit reduction ahead of jobs and penalizing social assistance recipients. Toronto Board of Trade President Carol Wilding says “this is not a good day for regional transit” as the budget slashes billions of dollars in new transit construction. Toronto Mayor David Miller is even more blunt, calling the $4 billion cut to transit capital funding “disgraceful” and “thoughtless”. Meanwhile, the 25-in-5 Network for Poverty Reduction is disappointed with the lack of progress on the province’s poverty reduction agenda, and calls the 1% increase in social assistance “playing small time.”

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Michael Shapcott

About Michael Shapcott

Michael Shapcott is Director, Affordable Housing and Social Innovation at Wellesley Institute. Michael has worked extensively in Toronto, in many parts of Canada, nationally and internationally on social innovation, the non-profit sector, civic engagement, housing and housing rights, poverty, social exclusion, urban health and health equity. He is recognized as one of Canada’s leading community-based housing and homelessness experts. He is currently on secondment to the Princes' Charities Canada.

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Acknowledgement of Traditional Land

We would like to acknowledge this sacred land on which the Wellesley Institute operates. It has been a site of human activity for 15,000 years. This land is the territory of the Huron-Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. The territory was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and Confederacy of the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes.

Today, the meeting place of Toronto is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the community, on this territory.

Revised by the Elders Circle (Council of Aboriginal Initiatives) on November 6, 2014

In the spirit of equity and inclusion, if we can improve on this statement, please contact us. Thank you.