Balance. Achieved liberally.
Guelph MPP and Treasury Board President Liz Sandals spoke about Thursday’s provincial budget shortly after it was delivered by Minister of Finance Charles Sousa.
She said the province has achieved a balanced budget for the first time in a decade, something it has arrived at, not through dramatic cuts to programs but through prudent fiscal management and strategic investments.
With provincial coffers topped up by an economy well into recovery, the Government of Ontario has committed new billions to boost access to health care, hundreds of millions annually to provide free prescription medication to young people 24 and under, and money to reduce class sizes and repair/rejuvenate schools.
In media reports, Ontario New Democratic Party leader Andrea Horwath suggested the budget was under whelming. She had hoped to see a $15 per hour minimum wage announcement, and called the new OHIP+: Children and Youth Pharmacare program ill conceived.
Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown said in a CBC report that the budget was “an insult to the hard-working people of Ontario,” and questioned how the Liberal government achieved a balanced budget while letting the provincial debt balloon to $300 billion.
Sandals said the balance should not come as surprise. It took years to arrive at, but was carefully planned.
“We set targets for each year and we beat the targets each year,” she said in a telephone interview from Queen’s Park. “With the fiscal year that just ended in March we will again beat our deficit target. But the really exciting news is that we are back into balance.”
The government, she said, took the gradual approach, not the “slash and burn” one to get rid of the deficit.
“We were continuing to invest, and because we continued to invest in the economy, the economy continued to grow,” she said. “We balanced the budget by carefully growing the economy and therefore growing our revenue.”
She said the budget was balanced “in a very Liberal way” – achieved by adhering to important Liberal principles related to good health care, education, and public infrastructure.
Controlling program spending was also a major part of the equation, she said, adding that it is her job as Treasury Board President to put those controls in place. Targeted investments in things like public services, transit, various infrastructure projects, and business were part of those economy-building investments.
“It’s been a combination of carefully managed expenditures and targeted investments to grow the economy that’s lead us to work our way gradually back to balance,” she said. “Now that we are back to balance we will have to continue the careful program spending management. My job doing that continues.”
In this budget the province has committed $7 billion over three years to enhance access to health care and reduce wait times, including those to see specialists, and for procedures like cataract surgery, knee or hip replacements. Community and home care programs are also being expanded.
There is an overall three per cent increase to hospital funding, totally $518 million, and $9 billion over 10 years for new hospitals. The OHIP+ program is expected to cost $465 million annually.
A dementia support program has been added, along with a respite program for caregivers, and a transit tax credit for active seniors, Sandals said.
A cap of 30 students will be placed on full-day kindergarten class sizes, and other measures are aimed at reducing class sizes from Grade 4 to 8. There is $1.2 billion committed for school repairs and renewal over the next two years.
Ontario has lead the country in economy recovery over the past decade, she said, and the province has the highest GDP growth in the G7 countries.
“This is about real programs for real people,” Sandals said about the budgetary measures. “It actually makes a real difference for Ontario citizens, and that’s what our government has been all about. The fact that we are balancing means we are able to do more of the good things that we were already doing.”
View details of the 2017 budget at www.ontario.ca/page/budget-2017
