Ontario Budget Highlights

TORONTO - Defying Ottawa's insistence that grim economic forecasts demand deep business tax cuts, Ontario tabled a budget Tuesday that aims to combat high energy costs, a slowing American economy and the soaring Canadian dollar with modest tax measures and a $1.5-billion fund to retrain unemployed workers.

In a stay-the-course $96-billion spending plan which the governing Liberals called "prudent," Ontario vowed to accelerate previously announced tax cuts for manufacturers - by one year - while boosting spending on health care, education and fixing aging roads and bridges.

Following a heated and ongoing war of words with federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty over how to insulate Canada's most populous province against an economic downturn, the Liberals used the budget to fight back. The provincial fiscal plan accused the federal Conservatives of underfunding Ontario in everything from health care and infrastructure to employment insurance and policing.

"We have a plan to cope with the challenges currently facing Ontario. But we could get better results, faster, in partnership with the federal government," Duncan said in his budget speech. "We're not looking for a special deal - we're looking for the same deal. It's only right. We want a strong Ontario because a strong Ontario means a strong Canada."

The bulk of the budget - $40 billion - is devoted to health care, including the hiring of more nurses, while almost $19 billion is going to education. Low-and modest-income seniors will get some help with their property taxes, giving them up to $500 through an annual grant.

Social assistance is also getting a two-per-cent boost while the new Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs sees its budget almost double to $50 million.

The Liberals' first budget since their re-election last fall posts a $600-million surplus, falling short of the threshold to share leftover money with Ontario's cash-strapped municipalities. The province is projecting 1.1 per cent growth this coming year, rising to 2.8 by 2010 with projected reserves rising to $1 billion by 2009.

The "centrepiece" of the budget is $1.5 billion over three years to retrain skilled workers, including $355 million to help 20,000 unemployed workers get long-term career training, Duncan said.

The budget also includes a previously announced $1 billion for infrastructure, including $400 million for roads and bridges outside Toronto, $497 billion on public transit in the Golden Horseshoe and $100 million on affordable housing.

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Highlights of the 2008 Ontario budget presented Tuesday by Finance Minister Dwight Duncan:

- $1.5 billion over three years to retrain unemployed workers under a new Skills to Jobs Action Plan, including expanded apprenticeship programs and enhanced post-secondary student aid.

- $750 million in tax measures for business over four years, including a modest acceleration of the elimination of capital taxes for manufacturing and resource firms to Jan. 1, 2007 rather than previously announced 2008.

- Health-care spending increases to $40.4 billion, up 6.2 per cent over last year and accounting for 46 cents of every dollar the government spends. Some $500 million of that, flowing over three years, will hire 9,000 more nurses by 2012.

- Education spending rises marginally to almost $19 billion, including $67 million for special-needs students and $32 million over three years for the Student Nutrition Program.

- Property tax breaks for low-and moderate-income seniors under a $1-billion plan over five years.

- $1 billion in new municipal infrastructure funding to build roads and bridges, rehabilitate social housing units and boost public transit in the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton.

- $509 million over four years for northern Ontario, including investments in northern highways.

- Total budget spending of $96.2 billion for 2008-2009 with a $600-million surplus for 2007-2008. 

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2008/03/25/5100141-cp.html