What's in the Conservative government's mini-budget?
This week, Premier Ford released his Fall Economic Statement (FES). It’s a mini budget the Conservatives will champion as we head into an early election. You can read a complete breakdown on my website here.
Here’s a quick recap of what you need to know:
The Conservatives are not serious about fixing the housing crisis.
The FES estimates a drop in housing starts, pushing us further away from meeting our target of building 1.5 million homes over the next decade. Despite the drop, there's no commitment from the Ford government on zoning reform to speed up approvals and encourage density, nor meaningful funding for affordable housing. Despite a severe homelessness crisis, only 1,067 affordable homes have been built in six years.
Expect a one-off $200 check in the mail.
The Conservatives will be sending a $200 check to 15 million Ontario residents that will cost us $3 billion. This money should be going towards core services like health care, education and housing.
Ontario has become a have-not province.
We’re getting equalization payments from the Federal government. Ontario should be the economic powerhouse of the country. That’s not a good sign for our economy.
Health care funding is going up by $1B, but don’t expect to see significant improvements in health care.
The $1B increase in health care funding is mostly earmarked for back pay and higher wages for health care workers who had their wages suppressed by the Conservatives using Bill 124. Bill 124 was struck down by the courts as being unconstitutional.
Although the government is allocating $18M to cover tuition for medical students pursuing family medicine in Ontario, this will not immediately address the shortage of family doctors, with 2.3 million Ontarians currently without one. More investment is needed in administrative support for family doctors and in family health teams and nurse-led clinics.
Education funding remains stagnant.
Stagnant education funding means schools will continue to face massive repair backlogs and oversized classes. Our kids deserve better.
Child care issues remain.
In October, the Ontario government made some improvements to the affordable child care program by allowing child care centers to access more funding to cover their costs, but no new funding was added to support living wages for child care workers.
The justice sector will see a funding cut of 9%.
The planned cut in justice funding means less court time and staff available to prosecute serious crimes, like sexual assault. That means more cases will be thrown out because of delays. It also means the backlog facing our tribunals – like the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) – will likely grow. There’s about 53,000 people waiting for a hearing at the LTB, an astronomical amount.
We will be debating the Fall Economic Statement in the coming weeks. Please send me your feedback at [email protected], and sign up to speak or submit written comments to the Fall Economic Statement (Bill 216) in committee.
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