For Immediate Release
April 14, 2005

Tobacco counties short-changed $16.1 million

Barrett demands Liberals restore fair transfer payments to tobacco communities

Queen’s Park – Tobacco-growing communities are being short-changed according to Haldimand-Norfolk-Brant MPP Toby Barrett.

Barrett has learned that, two weeks after the Ontario Liberals announced $15 million in transition funding for tobacco counties, Norfolk, Brant, Elgin and Oxford Counties and the Town of Tillsonburg will receive $16.1 million less under the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund than they did in 2004.

“This means that these four counties won’t even come out ahead,” Barrett said. “In fact, even with the transition funding, they are receiving $1.1 million less than they did last year.”

On behalf of tobacco farmers, their respective communities and rural Ontario MPP Barrett demanded today in the Ontario Legislature that Premier McGuinty restore fair and equitable transfer payments.

“At a time when these municipalities are trying to assist their local economy because of the crisis in tobacco, this government plays show and sham politics by handing out money with one hand and taking it back with the other,” he continued. “This government is either highly insensitive to rural Ontario or is totally fiscally incompetent.”

Following is the breakdown of the decreases (in dollars as well as percentages) each municipality will experience:
· Brant County $2.9 million – a decrease of 48 per cent
· Elgin County $4.485 million – a decrease of 67.8 per cent
· Norfolk County $7.3 million – a decrease of 54.7 per cent
· Oxford County $979,000 – a decrease of 100 per cent
· Town of Tillsonburg $451,000 – a decrease of 100 per cent

Barrett concluded by saying, “I am particularly concerned with the shell game this government has played with our tobacco communities. Just weeks after announcing $15 million to tobacco communities for economic diversification we receive some of the deepest transfer payment cuts in this province.”

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For more information please contact MPP Toby Barrett at: 519-428-0446, 905-765-8413 or 1-800-903-8629