As a tax payer how many times have you wished that you could just stand before the Ontario government and speak your peace and really be heard?
Well you may have taken a similar opportunity although you certainly weren’t going to have all eyes on you and the undivided attention of the politicians, but at least you were able to speak, or rather write about what’s on your mind.
There was a new online tool that you could use to put forward your ideas or give your input on a key issue like how the Government could meet the priorities of the people in Ontario while staying on track with the budget target.
Unfortunately the time period for doing this was very limited, but hey something is better than nothing right? At least if you get to speak out on one issue that’s something, or probably the way the Government looks at it.
Some look at it as a way of the Government saying if you can do better and stay on budget then let’s hear it.
What this online consultation is revolving around is the annual pre-budget. It is supposed to give the people a change to openly discuss what they feel is important and where the dollars should go.
There were a couple of choices of how to present your input. You could either email direct to the government, or you could post it directly to the site. This may have been a better way because it allows anyone to view the comments
Now the government is saying that they are going to take this feed back and analyze it so they can better understand what the people want, and this in turn will help them set their priorities. This new tool was only open for use from Feb. 10 to 27th.
This step of inviting the public to interact with parliament is another stem of the government transparency initiative that it has been pushing. This is in line with the four step economic plan which is comprised of…
Investing in people and their talents and skills to build a better Ontario,
Focusing on the infrastructure
Building a thriving environment for businesses
Retire security with a secure retirement savings plan.
If you missed out on your chance to use the new tool, you can still see the comments that were left.
There were no shortages of topics covered because every one of us has our own idea of what we feel is priority, when it comes to where the dollars should be spent.
When you begin to check out some of the comments you will see how readers voted on them. One example of a topic was “simplify being an employer”, with the basic concerns being calculating stat holiday pay, WSIB being mandatory and a few other issues. This particular comment received 255 votes with 229 being positive and the rest negative.
