Ontario Budget 2007

[waterloowarrior]

http://events.streamlogics.net/minfi...p?lang=english

watch it live

Sorbara delivers balanced budget
Mar 22, 2007 04:02 PM
From Canadian Press

The Ontario Liberals reached out to the province’s most vulnerable residents today in a pre-election budget that earmarked billions for low-income families, promised a raise for minimum wage workers, and boosted social assistance rates.

The centrepiece of the Ontario government’s strategy to target poverty - a five-year, $2.1 billion Ontario Child Benefit for low-income families that will help some 1.3-million children. This July, families with a net income of $20,000 or less will receive a $250 cheque per child, an annual benefit which will increase to $1,100 by 2011.

A raise in the minimum wage to $10.25 by 2010 was also among the budget’s promises.

In the Liberals’ final fiscal blueprint before Ontario voters go to the polls Oct. 10, Finance Minister Greg Sorbara outlined $91.2 billion in spending while borrowing from the party’s social policy critics.

The new focus on poverty comes after the Liberals lost three urban byelections to the New Democrats following steady criticism over the minimum wage and for clawing back the National Child Benefit Supplement that Ontario gets from Ottawa.

The province’s healthy economic state - which the government says will produce a $310-million surplus this year and surpluses up to 2010 - means the Liberals can focus on child poverty, Sorbara said.

“The Ontario Child Benefit is a marvellous transformation of the way in which we support low-income families. In short, it takes children off welfare,” Sorbara said.

“We have now left the era of deficits and entered an era of sustainable services. In short, the province’s finances are healthy again.”

While the focus was clearly on poverty, there were overtures made to small business and homeowners.

Business owners will see a $540-million cut to the business education tax rate over the next seven years, reducing rates in 321 municipalities, while homeowners will see changes to the property tax assessment system, including a move to a four-year reassessment cycle.

The Liberals also vowed to accelerate the elimination of the capital tax, from 2012 to 2010.

The budget - that stays on health care and education with increased spending - boosts child care spending by $25 million while using some federal affordable housing cash to create a new $185 million housing allowance for low-income families with children.

Ontario’s disabled and welfare recipients are also getting a raise - payments will go up by two per cent although many were asking for a 10-per-cent increase.

After a sustained campaign by the NDP to immediately raise the minimum wage from $8 an hour to $10, Sorbara said the province will phase in three increases starting next March that will bring the hourly rate up to $10.25.

Although political observers said the budget was about taking way the NDP’s ammunition on social policy, Sorbara said this budget isn’t an election blueprint.
“With this budget, we have finally had the opportunity to address the social deficit,” he said. “This budget is not about the election campaign.”

Among those who made relatively little gain in Thursday’s budget - the province isn’t topping up its projected spending for post-secondary education despite extra cash coming from the federal government.

After being virtually shut out of the federal budget, aboriginals didn’t command a high profile in the Ontario budget either, aside from receiving $80 million for off-reserve housing.

Ontario’s struggling manufacturing sector received no new financial aid but got an Ontario Manufacturing Council that will update the government about the state of the sector.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/195013

[waterloowarrior]

balanced budget! on track for 5 in a row

[waterloowarrior]

http://www.ontariobudget.ca/english/

[LordMandeep]

wierd liberals are very fiscally sound more so then the Mike harris consveratives.

[upinottawa]

It should not be a surprise to anyone that the budget was balanced. That was the plan: run "Harris-Eves legacy" deficits for three years and then balance the budget prior to the election. The budget could have been balanced last year, but the government decided to invest (or save for an investment) money for the Toronto subway extension, amongst other transit projects.

[LordMandeep]

GTA social pooling is gone...

[ssiguy]

What exactly did transit/cities get out of this? I see they mentioned Spadina Ext, Acceleride, MissTransitway funds but I thought hey were already funded in the last budget.

[WaterlooInvestor]

Waterloo got provincial funding for LRT! All we need are the feds now. (for more info on the project: http://transitea.region.waterloo.on.ca/) From Today's Waterloo Region Record:

Province promises millions for region's rapid-transit system
TAMSIN MCMAHON
(Mar 23, 2007)

Ontario promised to pour millions of dollars into Waterloo Region's proposed rapid-transit system yesterday.

The commitment came in the provincial government's latest budget: when the region is ready to build, the province will cover one third of the first phase of the project -- the $300-million link between Kitchener and Waterloo.

"What we desperately needed was a firm commitment that they were going to be there for us when we needed them," said Waterloo Region Chair Ken Seiling.

"For me, personally, it was a validation by the province that this is a project they think is important."

The money won't be required for a few years, Seiling said.

Meanwhile, technical studies and an environmental assessment are underway to come up with a recommended system made up of buses or light rail.

The region could start working on financing the project by the fall, Seiling said.

What's missing is a commitment from the federal government.

"This is obviously a signal to the feds that we're anxious for them to come to the table," Kitchener Centre MPP John Milloy said.

"We've committed to our third and my understanding is the only way the project could go forward is if the federal government came forward with its third."

Yesterday's provincial budget included another $6.5 million to the region for public-transit infrastructure, and $11 million for affordable housing.

Cambridge Mayor Doug Craig took this as a good sign.

"The very fact that we've gotten some money from the Ontario government is a positive change," he said. "They finally understand there's light outside the GTA."

Craig was, however, hoping for new money for a promised expansion of Cambridge Memorial Hospital.

The budget included about $5 million for 25 citizenship-and-cultural centres to benefit ethnic groups across the province. Kitchener Coun. Berry Vrbanovic hopes they will help the region with new Canadians who settle here.

The province also pledged to overhaul the property-assessment system by replacing yearly reassessments with increases phased in over four years, starting in 2009.

That's good news in Waterloo, where some homeowners have seen their property taxes skyrocket because of reassessments, said city Coun. Jan d'Ailly.

"We're certainly looking forward to the whole thing being revamped," he said.

But the provincial plan doesn't go far enough, said Allan Hunt, a realtor whose assessment has increased nearly 50 per cent on his Waterloo home in 10 years.

"I don't understand why they have to phase it upward all the time," he said. "If situations occur like inflation, there's no reason to raise it at all."

tmcmahon@therecord.com

LOCAL SPENDING

Other budget highlights for Waterloo Region

$11.3 million for affordable housing.

$6.5 million for public transit infrastructure.

$1 million for the Catholic Family Counselling Centre's domestic violence program.

$10 million to expand broadband services across rural southern Ontario.

$350,000 to Christian Horizons, which helps people with developmental disabilities.

$250,000 for Reaching Our Outdoor Friends (ROOF) to expand its programs.

$4 million in funding for Children's Treatment Centres across Ontario, including KidsAbility.