What’s in Ontario’s band-aid budget?
Ontario is flying through serious economic turbulence because of Donald Trump’s trade war.
The 2025-2026 provincial budget should be helping tariff-proof our economy, by getting Ontario building, looking after people, and growing a sustainable economy.
What we got instead is a mean Conservative band-aid budget – there’s a lot here for big business, but struggling hospitals and schools are getting shortchanged, and there’s nothing to help people afford the groceries or pay the rent.
Here’s what you need to know about the budget.
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Health care is being forced to do more with less
The Conservatives have been talking up their increased funding commitment for hospital operating costs, building new hospitals, and primary care expansion.
All of this is good news but the truth is the health care budget is being cut by $6.4 million.
This cut is occurring at a time of unprecedented demand, due to aging demographics and Ontario’s rapidly growing population. Did you know we grew by 12% in the past six years?
This funding cut is also occurring at a time when our health care system is struggling after years of chronic underfunding.
This is the dire state of public health care. Over 2.3 million people in Ontario do not have a family doctor, and that number is set to double in two years as doctors retire or move to other medical fields. Hospital funding per person is lower in Ontario than any other province. Emergency rooms in Ontario are temporarily closing more than 200 times a year due to funding and staffing shortages.
As the public system groans under the weight of demand, the Conservatives are investing an additional $280 million in for-profit health care clinics, continuing their dangerous plan to expand for-profit health care in Ontario.
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Schools and childcare funding are being short-changed
Spending on elementary and secondary education is going up from $39 billion to almost $41 billion in this budget, but don’t for a second think this will improve the quality of learning in the classroom.
This education funding increase does not keep pace with population, inflation and rising costs, nor does it reverse the $1500 per student funding cut our schools have experienced since the Conservatives came to power in 2018.
The Conservatives are also playing fast and loose with the numbers because they’ve lumped federal affordable childcare funding into the education budget, driving up the overall figure.
What this budget means is that class sizes aren’t going to shrink, they’re going to grow. The school boards facing deficits, including the TDSB, will need to make serious cuts to balance their budgets for next year. Funding for special education and school building repair and maintenance remain embarrassingly low.
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The Conservatives have thrown in the towel on housing
The Conservatives have cut funding to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing by $379m.
There’s no credible plan to fix the growing homelessness crisis. Ford’s tough crime approach to encampments is inhumane, expensive, and futile. Rent prices are cripplingly expensive, and new housing construction has dropped to 30-year lows.
This budget should include big investments in building thousands of affordable homes on public land, investing in supportive housing to address homelessness and addiction, and speeding up the construction of apartments and high-density housing in towns and cities.
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Post-secondary education is seeing a $1.2 billion cut
Colleges and universities are seeing a massive $1.2 billion cut. We’re already dead last in funding colleges and universities compared to other provinces, and this cut leaves us trailing even further behind.
Every day we hear of weekly announcements of layoffs, cuts and program department closures.
I fear that an increasing number of qualified Ontario students graduating high schools will not be able to find a college or university to attend.
Investing in post-secondary education is key to building our economy and recruiting and keeping talented and skilled workers.
Post-secondary education funding should go up to the national average.
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Jobs and the economy
The budget has allocated a lot of additional funding for businesses and workers.
The government is establishing a Protect Ontario Fund to provide up to $5 billion in business support. They’re expanding the manufacturing tax credit from 10 to 15%, deferring provincially administered taxes, and have allocated $1 billion more for a skills development fund to retrain workers.
Some of these measures we’ve called for, such as the manufacturing tax credit, but others are raising huge red flags.
The Conservatives are permitting big businesses, including foreign companies, to access these programs, when our tariff-proofing measures should be prioritizing Ontario and Canadian businesses.
And to the best of our knowledge, there’s nothing that stops a foreign company from accepting government funding and then taking their jobs, equipment and factories down south when the economic trade war deepens. If the Conservatives are going to move ahead with investing in foreign companies, we need iron-clad agreements to ensure these companies keep their side of the deal.
The budget should be increasing investment in the construction of important infrastructure, like hospitals, schools, public transit and affordable housing. These measures generate thousands of good jobs and help Ontario address our critical social needs at the same time.
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Ramp up buy local and build local
The government wants to recognize the first day of June as Buy Canada day, and they’re investing in the Ontario grape program to encourage wine producers to use Ontario-grown grapes.
While important, these are half-hearted attempts to keep Ontario dollars in Ontario.
If we want to get serious about investing in Ontario, then let’s require big retailers to label Canadian-made food and products so Ontarians can do their part and easily support local businesses when they shop.
We’d like to see Ontario leverage its massive procurement power to contract with Canadian municipalities, corporations, public institutions, and businesses to provide services and products to Ontarians and generate good jobs.
Why on earth did the Conservatives give the Service Ontario contract to US giant Staples? Why is the government paying a US company $9 billion to build the Ontario Line? These decisions don’t help our economy.
It’s time to put Canada first.
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Ford has turned his back on climate solutions
As last summer's extreme heat and wildfires gave way to the warmest winter on record, Ontario needs to tackle our climate emissions and prepare bravely for warmer and more volatile weather.
Quebec and BC have made climate change a feature in their recent budgets, Ontario’s budget doesn’t even mention the words climate change.
Ontario is making some investments in public transit and electric vehicle manufacturing, but there’s no firm commitment to reduce emissions or invest in infrastructure to make our economy green, sustainable and resilient.
The Conservatives are letting their ant-environment ideology get in the way of planning for the long-term.
Ontario's Financial Accountability Office calculated the dangers of a changing climate could add more than $4 billion per year to the cost of maintaining Ontario's public infrastructure. It’s wise to invest in a strong climate response now.
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Social assistance rates keep people in poverty
OW and ODSP payments remain at the same poverty level, despite the rise in inflation, and cost of living. This is inhumane.
Ontario should double social assistance rates to lift people out of poverty.
Next steps
To find out more and ask questions, I encourage you to join me at an online 2025 Provincial Budget Debrief, hosted by MPP Alexa Gilmour (Parkdale-High Park) on Wednesday May 21st from 7pm – 8.30pm.