$ 15 billion. This is the “hole” the Progressive Conservatives said they inherited from Kathleen Wynne when they came to power. The Ford team was elected without a numerical platform in 2018, but has promised to stop “ gravity train liberal.
After four years and a pandemic, Doug Ford wants to enlarge this hole to 20 billion.
This is also the main purpose of his budget, filed a few days before the launch of the campaign: to spend more to prepare, literally and figuratively, the road to his re -election.
Now that he’s fixed his role as principal, Doug Ford doesn’t seem too busy with financial responsibility. He even changed himself Financial Sustainability, Transparency and Accountability Act to postpone the filing of the budget until the election is near.
Helmet and boots with steel cover on support, the head of computer is now builder highways, hospitals and metro lines.
Regions that are in the crosshairs of his re -election team are flooded with investment.
Others, mainly Eastern Ontario, a Liberal stronghold where the majority of Franco-Ontarians live, have been completely forgotten (the New Democrats, by the way, give little importance to this region on their platform) .
As political scientist Geneviève Tellier pointed out on Twitter, motorists are the big winners in this budget, mainly in 905, the suburbs of Toronto.
Doug Ford even gave them the cover page of his budget.
He rolled out the red carpet for them: expanding highway 401, building two new highways north and west of the city, ending tolls on highways 412 and 418 to the east, in the Durham region, reducing the gas tax, etc.
And that doesn’t count as paying sticker fees, a check for a few hundred dollars that has already arrived in motorists ’pockets (François Legault’s $ 500 Ford version).
The Windsor and Northern Ontario regions, where there are rides that Doug Ford wants to withdraw from the New Democrats, are also well served. The budget promises large investments to revitalize the industries that sustain them: the automotive and mining sectors, respectively.
The new pet constituency of Mr. Ford, the workers, is the target audience for basic grants, such as raising the minimum wage to $ 15 per hour and the enhanced tax credit for low -income workers.
And it seems to be bearing fruit: LiUNA, the largest construction union in the country, is encouraging its members in Ontario to vote for Doug Ford. A blow for Andrea Horwath, the head of NDPthat there is no longer a monopoly on union support.
An electoral bet
With this plan, Ontario is in the red until 2027-2028. Doug Ford could have balanced the budget faster if he wanted to. By 2023-2024, according to a recent analysis by Ontario’s financial watchdog, the BRF.
The Minister of Finance is right to say that COVID-19 has exposed the intense need to invest in our health and long-term care infrastructure. Few would deny this argument.
But did Peter Bethlenfalvy, who strongly criticized Kathleen Wynne’s spending when she headed Canadian rating agency DBRS, became enthusiastic about spending, like her boss?
The answer will come after the election, if Doug Ford’s party is re -elected and if this version of the budget is re -recorded, without changing it.
Source: Radio-Canada