Progress Report 2010

Ontario is on the move again. This is an exciting and demanding time in the history of our province. We need to grow stronger in a more competitive world and we have a plan to get there.

This past year, Ontario launched a five-year Open Ontario Plan to strengthen our economy and create more jobs. Growing our economy means being open to change, opportunities and our new world. In this report, you’ll read more about that plan and what it means for Ontario families.  

Working together we’ve made a lot of progress over the past seven years. In our schools the number of students in Grades 3 and 6 meeting the provincial standard is up 14 percentage points and graduation rates have risen from 68 to 79 per cent. We’ve made room for 200,000 students in our colleges, universities and apprenticeship programs.

In health care, wait times are lower — we’ve gone from the worst in Canada to first. We’ve created more nursing positions, and over one million more people now have a family doctor.

Since the global economic recession struck, things have been difficult for many Ontario families.  We lost 250,000 jobs. Many of us know someone who was laid off, perhaps even in our own homes. Yet, we’ve already gained back 76 per cent of the jobs we lost.  

Since May 2009, we’ve created more than 188,900 net new jobs. Retail sales are up 5.5 per cent, from this time last year. Manufacturing sales are up nearly 14 per cent and exports are up 15 per cent. We’ve gone from being one of the Canadian provinces hit hardest by the recession to the one of the fastest growing. And we did it by working together.

This is the seventh in a series of progress reports that have been issued by the Ontario government. But they’re really about what Ontarians have accomplished by working and building together.   

We’ve come a long way — but there’s more to do. And we have a plan to keep Ontario moving forward.