The province is promising more funding for skills training, jobs and infrastructure as part of the budget, announced Tuesday.

The budget included $1.5 billion for skills training as part of a Skills to Job Action Plan.

The money is great news to Gloria Evans, employment developer specialist with Job Connect Barrie, an organization that helps those seeking employment develop skills and connect directly with employers.

Evans said any funds for skills training are good funds.

“Any increased funding for skilled training would have an effect on the Job Connect Program and any employment program,” Evans said. “Because we work directly with the employers, if Job Connect gets more funds, it will also have an impact on the employers that work with us.”

Simcoe North MPP Garfield Dunlop welcomed the promise of more money for training, but tempered his enthusiasm with concerns over policies governing Ontario’s apprenticeship programs.

He said employers willing to train new workers in the trades are hampered by rules that require an “unfairly” high ratio of journeymen to apprentices.

“That has got to change,” he said. “By the time you have a third apprentice, you need five journeymen. It should be a one-to-one ratio.”

Dunlop, who has urged the government to create a ministry for the skilled trades, said the current policy discourages employers from hiring new blood.

“You can train more people at Georgian College, but you cannot get them a job where they can get their (required training) time,” he said. “They won’t be able to get the apprenticeship they need until they sign up with a company, and that won’t happen until the ratios change.”

Barrie resident Chris DiLieto is pleased the budget contains funds for job creation.

“I’m out here looking for work and it’s nice to hear the government is going to do something to help me, and other people like me, get the skills and get the good jobs,” he said.

The budget also included $1 billion for municipal infrastructure, including $100 million for affordable housing.

Wendell McArthur, director of engineering for the City of Barrie, said any provincial money for infrastructure is a benefit.

“We have our proposed 10-year capital budget with a lot of large projects and many of them will require financing,” McArthur said.

“In other words, we would have to issue debentures and pay them of over an extended period of time. So if we get some infrastructure funding from the province, it’s certainly going to assist with paying for those projects, and less borrowing on the part of the city.”

Also included in the budget was increased funding for Ontario 211, a telephone hotline which helps the province’s most vulnerable citizens access social service programs.

The United Way of Simcoe County is already running Ontario 211 in the southern Georgian Bay area and Midland, and will launch 211 in South Simcoe in April.

Seija Suutari, executive director of the United Way of Greater Simcoe County, said the funding would help roll the program out across the rest of the county.

“Between our United Way and the United Way of South Georgian Bay, collectively, over the last six years have invested $210,000 to keep 211 in Simcoe County alive,” she said. “It’s in a state of incubation right now so when the provincial and federal funders come to the table, it’s there, and the relay just needs to be switched.”

Suutari said, although those who work in the anti-poverty field were expecting some funding, specifically the $135 million for free dental care for the working poor, she said next year’s budget will have a lot more.

Tuesday’s budget also included $32 million over three years for nutritious snacks in schools and community centres.

-with files by Frank Matys