Ontario budget disappoints—but does not surprise
Yet another missed opportunity to tackle big problems
Randy Robinson is the Ontario Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Follow him on Twitter at @RandyFRobinson.
Yet another missed opportunity to tackle big problems
Five years into a six-year plan, Queen’s Park is still budgeting big but spending small
No province in Canada gives less funding per student to post-secondary institutions than Ontario
Provincial coffers are short $7.7 billion this year
For every dollar per person spent on programs in other provinces, Ontario spent 75 cents
Ontario government is squirreling money away while public services suffer
With that kind of money, developers could buy 60,000 brand new Cadillacs — or 100 high-end private jets
There’s no sign that anybody will face real consequences for the $10 billion giveaway
“All sectors spent less than planned,” Financial Accountability Office says.
It bears repeating—properly funded public services do more to improve Ontarians' lives than deficit reduction.
For policy-makers, perhaps the most obvious lesson of the pandemic is that poverty, including child poverty, can be reduced much more quickly than Ontario has done in recent years. Timid policies that unfold incrementally over decades are of no use to children who will be grown up before we finally get around to taking action.
The province spends much more money on things that aren’t priorities. Supporting education workers should be high on the priority list.
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