Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services

Message from the Chair
Dear Premier McGuinty and Minister Duncan:
Message from the Chair
Thank you for inviting me to chair the <strong>Commission</strong> on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services.
This can be an important turning point in the province’s history and I welcome this opportunity
to present the ideas contained in this report.
I especially appreciate the extraordinarily wide mandate you gave the <strong>Commission</strong>, which
makes it much more than a simple exercise in cost-cutting. It has allowed us to delve into
almost every corner of the government’s activities and to think long and hard about how
government can work better for the benefit of everyone in the province. It recognizes that the
people of Ontario deserve the finest public services at a cost that is affordable.
Let me first thank the other three commissioners. Dominic Giroux, Susan Pigott and
Carol Stephenson brought to this work long and varied experience and keen minds that added
enormously to the quality of our thinking. The <strong>Commission</strong>’s work has benefited from the views
and work of many people, both inside and outside the government, who took time to share
their views with us. We had excellent support from the Secretariat under the leadership of
Scott Thompson. Members of the Ministry of Finance were particularly helpful, but we also
benefited from the wise counsel of many people in the Ontario government, who gave us
generous access to their ideas and data.
With such a broad mandate to be carried out over a limited period, we were not able to
conduct comprehensive consultations. But every group we asked to meet us not only accepted
our invitation, but offered great ideas for reforms in their domains. We thank them all.
Ontario faces two serious fiscal challenges. The first is to get out of the current large
deficit. This will take many years, but the task does not end there. It goes almost without
saying that every effort must be made to bolster future economic growth rates, and much has
been done in that regard, such as reinvesting in education and reforming the tax system. But
with a looming slowdown in the expansion of the labour force that is almost upon us and with
the province’s weak productivity growth of late, Ontario cannot count on a resumption of its
historical strong growth rates. This means that the sharp degree of fiscal restraint needed over
the next few years to eliminate the deficit may see a point of some reprieve, but not much.
Spending simply cannot return to recent trends.
vii