Ontario’s 2015 budget landed Thursday without a bang. Yet, the $131.9-billion plan did offer a few surprises, including student assistance reforms, a bonus for divers with winter tires and plans to build eight new schools.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan DenetteOntario Finance Minister Charles Sousa and Premier Kathleen Wynne before tabling the provincial budget at Queen's Park in Toronto on Thursday, April 23, 2015.
The government anchored its messaging in the $130 billion for infrastructure announced last year and incremental beer reforms previewed last week, two consumer-friendly pitches to bury big public sector fights to come. A planned 5.5 per cent cut to all government sectors except health, education, justice and social services means ministries like environment, natural resources and Aboriginal affairs must see significant cuts over the next three years to save $2.8 billion annually. Even the minor increases in other sectors, like 1.9 per cent for health, are essentially flat, and public sector unions claim they will amount to real cuts after inflation, and say they are prepared to fight them. Teachers are already threatening further strikes, and other unions aren’t far behind.
A partial sale of Hydro One to fund infrastructure is also stirring controversy, with CUPE Ontario pledging $500,000 to fight it.
Despite the looming strife, the fiscal plan is to reduce the deficit to $8.5 billion by the end of this fiscal year, to $4.8 billion the year after and balance the books by 2017/18.
The budget includes no new tax increases, except a one-cent-a-bottle charge on beer announced last week.
And while the numbers are important, there’s also many important policies included in every budget that will affect your day-to-day life.
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Ontario budget 2015: No major spending cuts and no tax increases
Ontario budget 2015: Full text
Here are 20 things you need to know about Ontario’s 2015 budget.
1) A win for winter tires
The budget announces more reforms to auto insurance in Ontario, including a discount for winter tires and prohibiting premium increases for certain minor at-fault accidents that don’t cause serious injury.
2) The pension plan is coming… eventually
The budget adds a few details to the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan, and though it says it will be “established” by Jan. 1, 2017, it doesn’t say when you will start seeing it deducted off your paycheque, just like the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) it’s intended to supplement. For someone who makes $60,000 a year, the plan will knock about $22 bucks off his weekly pay, a contribution employers without workplace pensions will have to match. Self-employed Ontarians may be exempt. The budget also said the province will create the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan Administration Corporation, essentially a provincial CPPIB.
3) Road changes ahead
The budget reconfirmed many major highway projects the province has previously announced, including the 407 extension east of Toronto, construction of the Herb Gray Parkway in Windsor, expanding Highways 69 and 11/17 in the north, realigning Highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph, improving the 401 near London and the 417 in Ottawa.
Rich Buchan / The Canadian PressA commuter walks past a snow-covered Go-train in Oakville, Ont.
4) How transit money will be spent
The budget allocates $31.5 billion to transit from a $130-billion 10-year plan for infrastructure. $16 billion of that will go to the Toronto area, $15 billion to the rest of Ontario. The money will fund a plan to boost all-day two-way GO service throughout the region, up to Barrie and west to Kitchener. Other projects include an LRT for Mississauga, the Finch West and Sheppard East LRT projects in Toronto, expansion of rapid bus transit in York Region. The Hurontario-Main LRT in Mississauga and Brampton will also receive provincial funding, as are the LRTs in Waterloo and Ottawa.
5) Dreaming of rapid transit
Ontario also has far-off plans to build a high-speed train between Toronto, along the 401 corridor, to Windsor. It mentions a Toronto Relief Line, but no timeline or commitment other than to work with local and federal governments on it. There’s also a plan to link Toronto to Mississauga, Oakville and Burlington with a rapid bus link along Dundas Street. And a one-day plan to expand the Yonge subway north, and build an LRT on Queen Street in Brampton.
6) Electric charges
The debt retirement charge, which appears on all Ontario hydro bills to pay off a debt left over from hydro mergers and nuclear builds, will finally end Dec. 31, 2015. That will knock about $70 bucks off the average ratepayers’ annual bill. But the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit will also die at the end of the year, a kick back all ratepayers enjoyed to offset the costs of eliminating coal in Ontario’s electricity system, which will add about $17 dollars a month to the average bill. To offset that cost for low-income households, the province created an Ontario Electricity Support Program to give households with a maximum income of $52,000 a year an approximately $20 to $50 a month kickback, calculated based on the number of people in the home.
7) Modernizing OSAP
The Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) will be reformed to streamline its administration to the ministry and eliminate the Ontario Student Loan Trust that currently runs it. The caps on the maximum loan students can receive and the amount of debt the can incur will both be indexed to inflation. Students will also no longer be required to claim their cars as assets when applying for assistance. And, in a move hailed by the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, students will be able to apply for OSAP grants and loans separately, which means debt-averse students can get the former without fear of incurring the latter.
REUTERS/Chris Roussakis/Files Condo towers under construction in downtown Toronto.
8) Reforming condos
The province will at long last move to reform condominium rules in Ontario after years of consultation. Changes include new qualifications for condo managers and the creation of a licensing body for those managers as well as a dispute resolution office to help settle governance issues.
9) An UBER plan
The budget contains a section about working to help support the sharing economy, which includes businesses like UBER, Zip Car and Air BnB. It states the province will “help them comply with existing obligations’ and to ensure they can meet new rules as they are drafted.
10) Grading the College of Trades
The embattled oversight body for skilled trades in Ontario is under review by former Secretary of Cabinet Tony Dean. He will release a report in October about how to improve the regulatory body, which has been criticized for the way it sets apprenticeship ratios and the costs it places on employers.
11) New schools
The budget announces plans to build eight new schools, six of them for elementary students in Collingwood, East Gwillimbury, Ottawa, Severn, Toronto and Vaughan. It also allocated cash for two secondary schools, in Fort Erie and Peterborough. There are also plans to consolidate two schools in Windsor.
12) A megacourt for Toronto
The province will go ahead with long-standing plans to merge five provincial courthouses in Toronto into one, which will consolidate a number of Ontario Court of Justice and Superior Court of Justice operations.
13) A Greenbelt for the East?
The province is currently reviewing land-use planning. Citing the need to protect agricultural lands, budget states “the province will consider growth planning for eastern Ontario,” which could mean a much more significant greenbelt for eastern Ontario similar to the one that rings Toronto to supplement the tiny one already ringed by Ottawa highways.
14) Nurse practitioners get more scope
Ontario’s nurse practitioners will soon be able to refer patients to specialists, a right that used to be solely a medical doctor’s purview. The change will help ensure people are referred more quickly, especially in remote or rural areas where their primary care providers are often nurse practitioners, who can also prescribe and conduct minor procedures.
15) Pre-travel pricks might get easier
Ontario pharmacists might soon be able to dole out pre-vacation vaccinations against ailments like Hepatitis or tropical diseases commonly inoculated against before foreign travel.
16) Government advertising
As the federal government spends ever more of taxpayer cash to advertise its wares, Ontario is expanding its self-imposed rules to cover online and digital advertising. That means the auditor general will review all ads before they are run for signs they are “partisan” — a term that will also be defined under the new rules.
17) Reining in those third-party adds
For the past three elections, third-party ads from labour groups have lambasted the provincial Tories and the Chief Electoral Officer has repeatedly called for reform. After dragging their feet, the Liberals say they will “strengthen” existing rules, but offer no more details.
18) Debt by any other name
Ontario’s Green Bonds were announced last year to much promotion. Turns out the eco–friendly debt mechanisms were really popular: the province’s initial $1.9-billion offering was oversubscribed and investors bought up $2.4 billion worth. The Eglinton Crosstown was the first project to be funded with the new form of government bond.
19) Cap-and-trade remains opaque
The budget mentions the cap-and-trade scheme Ontario signed onto recently, but offers no details as to when it will be phased in, how much it will cost consumers, what kind of money it will raise or even how it will be spent.
20) Net zero
The province is again pursing wage freezes across the public sector. They’ve already imposed cuts on doctors and say small cost-of-living increases to salaries can be bargained, but those gains have to be offset with other savings, either in benefits or pensions, to produce what’s called a “net zero.”