... at Queen's Park, across Ontario and elsewhere.
"The world rural is not going to be spoken simply when we visit a farm," Premier Kathleen Wynne said of her Liberal government Monday at a conference in Toronto.
Wynne was joined by 20 of her cabinet members for a ministers forum at the combined meeting of the Rural Ontario Municipal Association and the Ontario Good Roads Association. It was a chance for municipal and industry stakeholders to meet the cabinet ministers and ask them questions. It was also the first time a sitting premier has taken part in the ministers forum.
Before the meet and greet got under way, Wynne laid out her priorities for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the portfolio she has taken on. The decision was not merely symbolic, she told the crowd, but an opportunity to deepen the continuing conversation between rural and agricultural stakeholders and the government.
"There has been a lot of talk about the notion of rural Ontario," she said.
"Often when we talk about rural issues we address them as if they're separate from everything else but we're not going to do that. We're just not going to do that because we're not isolated from each other and we're not solely identified by where we live."
The speech was light on details about proposed programs, although the Premier did specify that reintroducing a local food bill to bring together colleges and universities with farmers and agricultural stakeholders would be a priority for her government this session.
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* A record number of cabinet members attended the ministers forum at the ROMA-OGRA combined conference Monday afternoon. Twenty-one of the government's 27 cabinet ministers - including Wynne, the Agriculture and Food minister - made themselves available for questions from approximately 1,500 conference attendees, mostly municipal leaders and industry stakeholders.
Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli and Environment Minister Jim Bradley fielded more questions than other ministers, especially in relation to renewable energy projects and source water protection, respectively. Infrastructure Minister Glen Murray faced numerous questions about gas tax funding and asset management plans, while Health Minister Deb Matthews responded to questions about Health Links and doctor shortages.
Other issues of concern to municipal leaders:
<ul>
<li>Rising costs for police and firefighters as a result of arbitrator decisions.</li>
<li>Harmonized food packaging with the United States.</li>
<li>Horse racing industry.</li>
<li>Casino revenue for small municipalities.</li>
<li>Responsibility for landfilling waste.</li>
<li>Leases for cottages on provincial park land set to expire in 2017.</li>
</ul>
The largest applause came for Premier Wynne for admitting that a particular question on agricultural policy was beyond her early comprehension of the file. She promised to take the question back to her ministry, saying: "I'd rather not answer since I'd just be making it up at this point!"
Ministers Yasir Naqvi, Teresa Piruzza, Laurel Broten, John Milloy, Reza Moridi and Harinder Takhar were not in attendance.
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* Some Kingston council members are hoping the Premier will allow a referendum to decide whether the city will host a new casino.
<a href="http://www.thewhig.com/2013/02/24/council-response-to-casino-poll-mixed">A poll conducted by Abacus Data</a>, and commissioned by the Thousand Islands Accommodation Partners, found 78 per cent of respondents want the final decision on a casino to be made by referendum, not by a vote of council. The poll also found that 60 per cent of respondents were opposed to building a gaming facility in Kingston.
The poll of 505 Kingston residents was conducted last week and is considered accurate within 4.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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<h3>Quote of the day</h3>
“We found the secret Project Apple, Project Banana and Project Fruit Salad files. Speaker, they sound healthy until you realize they cost the taxpayer $1.3 billion for not one megawatt of power.”
– Tory MPP Vic Fedeli commenting in question period Monday on the cancellation of two gas-fired electricity plants that were known internally at the Ontario Power Authority by fruit-inspired code names.
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