Tuesday afternoon, Minister of Finance Peter Bethlenfalvy released the 2024 Budget: Building a Better Ontario.
Highlights include investing $1 billion in the new Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program and connecting approximately 600,000 people to primary health care with an additional investment of $546 million over three years.
And, launching a new $200 million Community Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund to invest in new and upgraded sport, recreation and community facilities.
On the flip side, Ontario is projecting a 9.8-billion-dollar budget deficit for the coming fiscal year.
The deficit for 2024-25 is almost double what the province projected in the fall economic update, and a return to surplus is not expected until 2026.
Bethlenfalvy acknowledged the challenging economic times as he tabled a provincial budget on Tuesday that contains few new affordability measures.
New money in the budget includes an additional two-billion dollars over three years for home and community care and more money for autism therapies.
And Ontario drivers could soon cut their insurance costs by opting for less coverage.
Under reforms proposed in the budget, medical, rehab and attendant care coverage would still be mandatory — but all other benefits would become optional.
The government argues that if drivers have access to certain benefits through workplace plans, for example, they shouldn’t have to pay twice through their auto insurance policy.
The proposed changes also include making auto insurance pay for medical and rehabilitation benefits before drivers put those costs through their extended health-care plans.
The Ontario Liberals are criticizing the Progressive Conservative’s newly presented budget, saying the government is choosing to ignore problems instead of fixing them.
Liberal finance critic Stephanie Bowman notes the provincial government has added 100-billion dollars in net debt since coming to power in 2018.
And The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association issued a statement Tuesday afternoon in response to release of the 2024 provincial budget.
Association president René Jansen in de Wal observed the proposed budget does not once mention the word ‘teacher’ in the body of the plan to build a ‘better Ontario.’
She added their is only passing references relegated to the footnotes.
The statement suggested the Ford government was using “cheap accounting tricks to hide its growing inflationary cuts to education.”
