Ontario auditor general report reveals major infrastructure, health care issues
For the Ontario government, this year’s auditor general report is no cause for self-congratulation. In her findings, Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk chastises Kathleen Wynne and her Liberal government for irresponsible or questionable spending of public funds in a number of different sectors.
One of those sectors was infrastructure, where road construction has proven to be problematic. According to the report, the Ministry of Transportation has yet to fully implement tests that determine whether or not asphalt it is using will crack before it is laid. As a result, there have been critical instances of premature cracking in the province. To fix the unnecessary damage, more and more public funds are then required.
Another part of infrastructure that was identified as being dubious was certain transit efforts. Lysyk brought up various examples, one of which was the construction of a pedestrian bridge to the Pickering GO station, where the provincial transit agency hired a company that made costly mistakes and was still contracted to do more work.
Inefficiencies were also brought up with regard to health care. The report asserts that 4,100 of Ontario’s 31,000 hospital beds are occupied unnecessarily by patients requiring long-term or external care. This impacts hospitals’ ability to serve other patients, as evidenced by a survey done by Lysyk which found that it took an average of 23 hours for ICU patients to get a bed and 37 hours for other short-term patients.
Further information from the 2016 auditor general report can be found at the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario website.