Ontario auditor general's report shines light on problems in the north

The scathing report released by Ontario's auditor general this week points to multiple issues affecting the day-to-day lives of people in northern Ontario, from finding a doctorto dealing with power outages.

Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk's773-page report released Wednesday lays bare a litany of problems under the Liberal government, but a few will resonate with northern Ontarians more than most.

In terms of health care, the auditor general says the province is losing medical specialists: about a third of surgical specialists trained in the province leave.

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Meanwhile, there are 200 permanent medical specialist positions vacant in the north and a growing patient demand.

The report also found the north is consistently relying on short-term replacement doctors on locumas along-termsolution.

GillesBisson,the NDP MPP forTimmins-JamesBay,says specialists mayget fewer patients in the north, sothe government should adjust how those doctors are paid.

"What government has not done is figure out a way to be able to level the playing field," he said.

Half the outages for a fifth ofthe customers

Lysyk also slams Hydro One for having longer and more frequent power outagesdespite increasing costs.

Almost half of Hydro One's outages happened in northern Ontario from 2010 to 2014, even though the province's north represents less than 20 per cent of Hydro One's customers.

Bissonsaidthe Liberals didn't fix aging infrastructurebecause they were planning on selling the Crown corporation.

"The government has known it was going inthis direction, and wasn't about to spend the money to do what had to be done on an ongoing basis," he said.

Ignoring the province's north

The auditor also says the Ministry of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure ignores the northdespite having the mandate to serve the entire province.

In the last 10 years, the ministryhas spent$1.6 billion but onlyfunded one northern project.

The auditor says the ministry told her most northern companies are too small to qualify for the ministry's larger funds.

NipissingProgressive Conservative MPP VicFedeliscoffedat that idea.

"Whoever gave the comment that there aren't big enough companies throughout the north has never seen a pulp and paper mill, has never see a mining operation," he said.

The auditor general also criticizes the government for having noco-ordinatedplan or funding strategy for the cleanup of contaminated sites.

The report says the government has no recourse against companies like Vale if the mining operation fails to followthrough on obligations to rehabilitate land.