Fedeli goes from opposition MPP to Minister of Finance in 2018

It’s been quite the year for Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli.

He’s gone from opposition to become the province’s Minister of Finance and also spent time as interim leader of the party.

Fedeli was asked if he’s had any regrets about not pursuing the top job during the leadership race captured by Doug Ford.

“I could not be any happier. Premier Ford asks me every day how I am doing. I tell him I can’t wipe the smile off my face. I’m so happy to be doing what I’m doing,” he says.

The big success for Fedeli and the PC’s came on a Thursday night in June. He says with the win has come major expectations with their large caucus.

“We have 4 members in Northern Ontario. We have members in Ottawa which we haven’t seen in a long,long time. We’ve got members in Toronto and the Toronto area so the big challenge is managing expectations for all these members,” Fedeli says.

Upon taking office he says they knew thay had to get down to work right away.

“We found $3.2 billion in efficiencies in the first 11 weeks after the commission of inquiry came out. We turned $2.7 billion of that back to families, seniors and businesses,” he says.

Fedeli says he’s hoping that the redevelopment of Cassellholme will be a big government priority in 2019 but action has been taken on health care in Nipissing already.

“The hospice, surge funding for the hospital and a tremendous amount of funding for health related issues in North Bay and Nipissing and don’t forget the Mattawa long term care money,” he says.

Fedeli says there were some surprises when they got a look at the books with the major one being the government had a deficit of $3.7 billion deficit when the Liberals were saying they had a $600 million surplus.

Government support of French Language Services came under fire this year.

Fedeli says there is a big deficit and the government has to deal with that but be also reminds people that federal funding per francophone is a lot higher in Manitoba and New Brunswick than Ontario.

He says he remains committed to bring the Northlander train during the governments first mandate which has he says has over 3 years to run.