quote:

You may be forgiven for feeling like you already know what's in the 2014 Ontario budget -- it had more leaks than a sieve in the weeks leading up to budget day.

There weren't really any big surprises in the budget, but reading it in its entirety makes one thing crystal clear: the Wynne government is getting election battle ready. This is very much an election budget. It gives multiple nods to NDP Leader Andrea Horwath's insistence that middle-income Ontarians be spared tax and fee increases. It extends the 2012 NDP-driven deal to implement a small marginal tax on Ontario's richest 0.2 per cent of tax filers. Now the Ontario government is asking the richest 2 per cent of tax filers -- those earning $150,000 or more -- to contribute a little more.

That means if your taxable income is from $150,000 to $220,000, the government is asking you to pay an additional 1 per cent marginal tax on earnings in that range. With the surtax, that'll increase the rate by 1.56 per cent. If you earn between $220,000 and $500,000 the government is asking you to pay an additional 3.12 per cent marginal tax. To underline just how high we are in the nosebleed section of the income scale, the government takes pains in the budget to specify that 98 per cent of Ontarians will not be affected by this measure. So middle-class Ontario can relax now.

There are a few small tax increases worth mentioning: a small increase in aviation fuel tax; a tax increase in cigarettes as part of a "Smoke-Free Ontario Strategy"; and revenue tools dedicated to transit and transportation improvements.

What's encouraging about these revenue options: the Ontario government appears ready to start a conversation about the value proposition of taxes, albeit timidly. Asking the richest 2 per cent to contribute more in the wake of a worldwide recession that battered Ontario isn't exactly bold, but it is a start. And it opens up a conversation about how the progressive income tax system can be used to redistribute income -- one of many tools in the toolkit available to reduce income inequality in Ontario. And given that Ontario is the second worst province in Canada (next to oil-blessed Alberta) for the income gap between the richest 1 per cent and the rest of us, this is a conversation whose time has come. Fuel and gas taxes haven't gone up since 1992, incredibly, despite mounting concerns about climate change. The aviation tax is chump change comparatively, but it opens up a discussion about how governments can turn to revenue tools to nudge desirable behavioural outcomes. Pair it with dedicated revenue tools to expand and improve public transit, and we have the beginning of a conversation about the role taxation can play in addressing environmental concerns -- let alone gridlock.

But before the tax deniers get too heated, the most important thing you need to know about the price of 15 years of tax cuts is on page 149 and 150 of the Ontario budget:

• Ontario's per capita program spending in 2012-13 was the lowest in all of Canada -- it's provinces like Saskatchewan and Newfoundland that are leading the way in supporting their population with public services;
  
• Ontario's total revenue per capita in 2012-13 was the lowest in all of Canada -- it's provinces like Saskatchewan and Newfoundland that are leading the way in revenue capture. So what does that mean for Ontarians?

First of all, it means the Wynne government isn't exactly ending the austerity budgeting program it inherited from its predecessor. In fact, Budget 2014 shows just how seriously the 2012 Drummond report recommending 362 spending cuts has been taken as bible at Queen's Park: the government is now 80 per cent of the way through implementing those cuts. Program expenses in 2013-14 are planned to be $587 million lower compared to the 2013 budget forecast. In fact, page 145 of the budget says "the government has undertaken an expenditure review to find greater efficiencies and is projected to exceed its 2013-14 year-end savings target by over 50 per cent."

And page 154 of the budget shows a chart illustrating how Ontario's public sector wage settlements are well below those in the private, federal and municipal sector average increases.

Secondly, in case you're wondering how a government can cut so much in public service spending and still grapple with a lingering $12.5 billion deficit in 2014, the answer lies in the cumulative revenue loss in 2013 to the spate of tax cuts implemented from Mike Harris on down. Ontario lost $19 billion to cumulative tax cuts in 2013. The budget documents say total revenue in 2013-14 is estimated to be $1.19 million below the amount projected in the 2013. Why? "The decrease is largely due to lower taxation revenues."

And guess what? There are more tax cuts to come, which should make Bay Street happy: cuts to the Corporate Income Tax rate for large and small businesses, the elimination of the Capital Tax and removing embedded sales taxes for businesses amount to a loss of $9 billion in revenue per year. Page 320 of the budget describes it as "savings to businesses."

In terms of new spending, the big-ticket item is a long-term investment in infrastructure repairs and expansion -- something the province has spent too long avoiding and the jig is up. We'll be talking infrastructure spending for years to come. The danger is that the infrastructure improvements will come at the expense of investments in public services and turn into a boon to the private sector by way of public-private partnerships (now dubbed Alternative Financing and Procurement). Page 80 of the budget says the government is now engaged in 80 such projects.

There are several other holdovers from the Mike Harris era influencing this budget. References to "tax relief" as though there is no inherent good in a tax. References to "further reduce the regulatory burden on businesses." References to "red tape reduction." Ontarians have been subjected to this language since Mike Harris stormed into power and for some politicians it never gets old. While Budget 2014 is clearly an election budget that reflects the Wynne government's attempt to outflank the NDP on some social justice line items while attempting to silence Hudak's complaints about public spending and taxes, it also shows hints of an attempt to press the reset button of what has been a tumultuous minority government run.

There are more nods to First Nations commitments than there has been in a long while in this budget (though the dollars attached to it are minimal).

There is finally progress in terms of raising social assistance rates for single adults.

There's the minimum wage increase (though it doesn't go far enough).

There's the announcement of consultations for a made-in-Ontario pension plan.

And the political commitment to finally get the Greater Toronto Area's public transit expansion moving cannot be understated -- it's been a long time coming.

But Ontario hasn't exactly entered a brand new post-austerity world, which leads me to this conclusion: Budget 2014 could be worse, but given the multiple pressures facing Ontarians, it most certainly could be better.

quote:

One of the great destructive conceits of modern political economy is the underlying assumption that governments manage and control economic activity. Every budget by national or regional governments comes with false claims that the fiscal actions taken — to raise taxes or lower them, to spend more here or less there, to launch new initiatives or to re-shuffle old assets and programs — will deliver new jobs, new wealth and new prosperity.

Ontario’s latest Liberal festival of debt, deficits and taxes is full of such nostrums. “We will create jobs and grow the economy by investing in our people,” Finance Minister Charles Sousa declared in a budget that in fact does little more than add new burdens on current and future taxpayers while adding nothing to growth. New taxes on the “rich” and small businesses, new spending on infrastructure, a new $2.5-billion Jobs and Prosperity Fund that supposedly will lead to the development of a strategy to support advanced manufacturing — or so say the Liberals’ union backers.

These annual fraudulent rituals, despite the claims of politicians, add little if anything to jobs and growth. Instead they build debt and pave the way to fiscal hell. The more governments expand their fiscal interventions, the greater the burden on voters. A decade of Ontario Liberal budgets — from 2005 to 2015 and beyond — has loaded $9,000 in new debt per capita, or $40,000 for each family of four, with more to come. Do the math: Net debt per capita is now heading $80,000 per family.

Ontario taxpayers will eventually have to pay for this debt, heading for $300-billion, plus pay higher interest charges as rates rise in the future. They will also be asked to pick up the cost of a new provincial pension plan, essentially a pension tax that is described in the budget as a growth and jobs creator.

Debt to GDP will top 40% this fiscal year, up from 26% a decade ago. In other words, for every $100 of annual GDP the province will now carry $40 in debt. The assumption is that all this debt, brought on by annual deficits totalling almost $100-billion over the last few years, has provided Keynesian stimulus to the economy, helping the province pull out of the 2008 slowdown.

And there’s the fraud, really. The deficit explosion did not produce the results predicted or promised when it was launched by the McGuinty/Wynne Liberals in 2009. The debt/GDP ratio was then forecast to rise to only about 34% and then fall to 30.5% of GDP by 2015. Well, 2015 is here and the debt burden is now 40% of GDP.

Jobs and growth are not created by government spending, deficits and debt. The evidence is clear, the lesson not learned.

CBC posted:

Just hours into the Ontario election on Friday, senior federal Conservatives stepped into the fight, delivering unvarnished scorn for some of Wynne's signature policies.

In an interview on CBC Radio's The House, Finance Minister Joe Oliver broke with the convention of keeping out of provincial elections and delivered a nasty assessment of the newly released Liberal budget.

...

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Stephen Harper lashed out at Wynne's proposal for a provincial retirement plan, calling it an "unnecessary tax hike."

eXXon posted:

Say no to PP...Ps!

quote:

Andrea Horwath made the lack of a new Financial Accountability Officer the centrepiece of the NDP's rationale for an election, but new documents reveal that the vacancy exists only because the NDP blocked the appointment of two qualified candidates.

NDP MPP Catherine Fife, a member of the all-party hiring committee, brought the hiring process to a halt in April by withholding the NDP's support for any applicants. Fife personally wrote to the Speaker of the Legislature: "I am looking forward to finding and hiring an independent and qualified applicant from a new field of candidates."

"The lack of a new Financial Accountability Officer was the centrepiece of Andrea Horwath's opposition to our job-creating budget, but that office would already be up and running if the NDP didn't stop it," said Vaughan MPP Steven Del Duca. "I know because I was there. I sat on the all-party hiring committee and watched as the NDP rejected qualified applicants and demanded a restart to the application process."

Leofish posted:

One MPP is accusing another MPP of blocking the appointment of a Financial Accountability Officer.

http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1349111/document-reveals-horwath-misled-on-financial-accountability-officer?relation=org


Nothing from the PCs yet today, near as I can tell. Their website isn't even updated with anything new. People are tweeting the link to volunteer for the party on the #onpoli hashtag pretty hard, though.

tagesschau posted:

None of the three parties' sites seems to reflect the fact that there's an election. Perhaps it's because the campaign hasn't officially started yet.

Heavy neutrino posted:

Just whom does Horwath think her party's supposed to appeal to now that she's gone and deliberately pissed off the unions in a bid for power?

Let's start a petition to force the NDP to rename itself to the New Liberal Party it so desperately wants to be.

Badger of Basra posted:

What's the polling like on this? Is it even worth it to ask, considering how lovely Canadian polling has been lately?

Badger of Basra posted:

What's the polling like on this? Is it even worth it to ask, considering how lovely Canadian polling has been lately?

Ikantski posted:

Badger of Basra posted:

What's the polling like on this? Is it even worth it to ask, considering how lovely Canadian polling has been lately?

JimboMaloi posted:

I'm very confused by the 4.6% of federal NDP supporters who say they'll vote for Hudak.

JimboMaloi posted:

I'm very confused by the 4.6% of federal NDP supporters who say they'll vote for Hudak.

Dr. Witherbone posted:

I've been wondering both of these things basically since the brutal BC shakeup last year.

Regence posted:

The pollsters also called for a large Wildrose majority in the Alberta election in 2011. The provincial NDP must be hoping its still out of whack because I dont see why you'd risk a PC minority/majority when you're the balance of power in a liberal minority government, granted I'm not an Ontarian so I might not be in tune with what's actually happening there.

Regence posted:

The pollsters also called for a large Wildrose majority in the Alberta election in 2011. The provincial NDP must be hoping its still out of whack because I dont see why you'd risk a PC minority/majority when you're the balance of power in a liberal minority government, granted I'm not an Ontarian so I might not be in tune with what's actually happening there.

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:

What is the NDP platform anyways? I mean what more did they want besides what the Liberals gave them? Seemed like a pretty good budget and the NDP is just being retarded and having an election.

infernal machines posted:

I basically just vote at the local level, my MPP (Cheri DiNovo) generally hasn't made a mess of anything. Although I'm sick of the "clean trains now" bullshit, I read the district newsletter and I still have no idea what else she's done around here, they've been pushing it so much.

Guy DeBorgore posted:

That's assuming you actually want the NDP to win, which most NDPers do. If you just want the NDP to sit in 3rd place and keep the Liberals scared then yeah, I guess you'll be disappointed.

Sashimi posted:

There's a pretty good chance someone within the PC ranks is going to make a severe gaffe that the media and the other parties can easily latch on to, sinking their chances. Two elections ago it was John Tory's proposal to have a vote on funding faith based schools, last time I think it was some backbenchers saying some crazy racist nonsense.

Pinterest Mom posted:

I'd posit that a lot of NDP supporters aren't NDP supporters because they want the NDP to win, but because they want left-wing policies to be implemented. This budget looks a whole lot like the Liberals delivering on longstanding NDP priorities on several fronts, and it might have been nice for the ONDP to take yes for an answer.

Leofish posted:

As far as Horwath goes, I can't figure it out, either... The only people who seemed to me to be happy with her decision were PC supporters who just wanted an election. They're not going to vote for the NDP, and in my anecdotal circles, they're still unhappy that it took her so long to bring the government down in the first place.

quote:

“How can Kathleen Wynne promise to build a ship when she hasn’t even built a raft?” Horwath said. “We don’t have any confidence whatsoever in their ability to come through on those promises.”

Ikantski posted:

... the Liberals are locked into defending the most expensive budget we've seen in decades while our debt to gdp ratio is higher than it's ever been. Maybe she is a political mastermind?

infernal machines posted:

I'm curious how you think an NDP budget would differ materially from the one the Liberals put forward. Unless, of course you're dismissing them both and counting on an OPC win.

Ikantski posted:

As a PC, I would gladly take Horwath over Wynne at this point. An NDP budget would probably similar, less infrastructure and corporate subsidies but at least it would be based on their party's values instead of pandering for votes. The NDP fear of nuclear power usually scares me but I'm not sure what her platform is on that.

I'm curious why you think the Liberals would actually deliver on their promises to NDP this year when they didn't deliver on a single one last year?

infernal machines posted:

I have no reason to believe the OLP would deliver on anything in the budget in particular, but presumably they'd make a good show of it. On the other hand the NDP is going to be in a much worse position in the event of a OPC minority government.

vyelkin posted:

This is a stupid election and I hope the NDP pay for it by electing a Liberal majority, at which point Wynne will steal all the NDP's good plays and name every bill the "Laugh at Andrea Horwath Act".

sbaldrick posted:

So I've figured out what is going to sink the PCO this time, Hudak or someone is going to talk about family values at some point and say Wynne doesn't speak for Ontario families, which will come off as an attack because of her sexuality.

You know it will happen