Budget day in Ontario

[Ash74]

In other words, they couldn't do anything right as far as you're concerned.

Really liked the access to secondary education was brilliant.

Killing coal was good. Green energy act was crap and still is but that is another thread.

Even agreed with the health care tax that McGuinty first lied about. It was a good call. Health care was suffering from the Harris/Martin cuts.

Finally killing the drive clean program is long overdue.

There are a few things I think that The Ontario Liberals have done right but their screw ups outweigh the successes.

[Smallc]

There are a few things I think that The Ontario Liberals have done right but their screw ups outweigh the successes.

I think it's important to give you credit for that.

I'm not saying the Ontario Liberals are perfect - far from it. They do seem to have a handle on the deficit at this point though. It's likely it will come in below $4B when all is said and done for the year upcoming. I said when Wynne won the last election that she would hold the line on spending. She's done that whilst at the same time engaging in the largest infrastructure program in the province's history.

[Ash74]

I think it's important to give you credit for that.

I'm not saying the Ontario Liberals are perfect - far from it. They do seem to have a handle on the deficit at this point though. It's likely it will come in below $4B when all is said and done for the year upcoming. I said when Wynne won the last election that she would hold the line on spending. She's done that whilst at the same time engaging in the largest infrastructure program in the province's history.

Handy if you live in Toronto. Rest of the province is ignored except to build windmills and collect taxes.

IF you think The Big Move is going to be a success than the history of the last 13 years has been lost on ya

[Smallc]

Handy if you live in Toronto. Rest of the province is ignored except to build windmills and collect taxes.

Ontario's highways are seeing their largest investment in decades. If you had driven all across northern Ontario, as I did last year, you would have seen all of the bridge and highway construction and widening going on.

[cybercoma]

I gladly invite you to compare the debt records of the PCs under Harris and Liberals under McGuinty/Wynne. You might learn something. Anyways, what needed to be done in your mind is always tax increases. Federal tax increases and now provincial tax increases. How about you get your hands out of other people's wallets all the time? For once.

Yeah. Let's look at a government during the 90s and compare them to governments dealing with 2008 and beyond.

I know. We'll just apply your excuses for Harper to the latter governments. Funny how you don't do that, despite their overlap.

[Pete_Coach]

Great idea about free University Education for low income households.

That kind of investment pays for itself in a few short years and then continues to generate funds through taxes on substantive incomes.

Why should students from low income families be exempt from paying for the tuition of an adult child? Should the adult child not be paying for their own education?

I felt the same way about student loans when my kids were going to University. They could not get student loans because my income was beyond a threshold. My income should not have any bearing on my adult child's ability to get a student loan. Other loans do not require family income as a requisite for approval.

This sounds like a Bernie Sanders election promise come to life.

[Topaz]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your adult child wouldn't have to pay for education unless they were living under your roof and on their own their income would be low, right? point of this new law, is to get more people an education so they can get a job and start paying income tax to the feds and give the person an education and a life not on welfare.

[Topaz]

BTW, I do believe Russia and lately Germany gives free or not out of pocket education.

[cybercoma]

Sounds like it won't be free tuition at all, but rather $800/semester.

[Pete_Coach]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your adult child wouldn't have to pay for education unless they were living under your roof and on their own their income would be low, right? point of this new law, is to get more people an education so they can get a job and start paying income tax to the feds and give the person an education and a life not on welfare.

You confuse me....an adult child applying for student loans qualifies only if the family income is less the $XX.

Neither of my kids had large incomes from part time and summer jobs and yes, they did live at home because they could not afford to live elsewhere.

[SunnyWays]

Sounds like it won't be free tuition at all, but rather $800/semester.

If it helps the discussion, Sousa - and later the Deputy Premium, Deb Matthews, admitted that there was no "new money" for this initiative. It looks like a good move because more money is provided up front - but it's really just shuffling money around.....

Sousa said the plan will increase access for everyone and won't negatively affect current students.

“All students would be as well as, or better off than, they are under the current Ontario tuition grant,” Sousa said.

Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown criticized the proposal, saying the new program will remain inaccessible to “70 per cent” of Ontario students.

New Democratic Party leader Andrea Horwath said the finance minister acknowledged there’s no new money being invested into students but it is streamlining the system.

“I’m still concerned that the post-secondary education commitment in this province is bottom of the barrel compared to most other provinces,” Horwath said. “We still have the lowest per capita funding and still have serious concerns about access, and hopefully this will help a little bit in terms of access but again, we’re still not doing very well when it comes to post-secondary education support overall.”

Link: http://www.westerngazette.ca/news/ontario-government-overhauling-financial-aid-system/article_39dc8c36-dc04-11e5-a063-4b7d7b18f324.html

[Argus]

So the deficit is lower than expected, and will be gone next year. Looks like I was right wen I said the Liberals would do what needed to be done.

Smoke and mirrors. There will still be a deficit next year unless Ottawa helps them out. Their budget counts on good times rolling on, and lots more money from the feds. If the feds don't come through with more money both this year and next year, if the dollar rises and the cost of oil rises - which they almost certainly will within the next few months, all their projections fall apart.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Argus

[Argus]

It hasn't been 13 years since 2008-2009.

Ontario has only had 11 balanced budgets in 50 years. 3 of those 11 years were under McGuinty. 4 were under the PCs in the 90s. Nice try though.

McGuinty never produced a balanced budget. You're dreaming.

[Argus]

Or any other government in the world during that time period.

The Ontario deficit is NOT a result of the economy. It's a result of continued huge spending increases well above the rate of both inflation and population growth.

[Argus]

Ontario has the lowest per-capita program spending among provinces and the lowest total government revenue per person among all Canadian provinces, including funding from federal transfers.

http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/budget/ontariobudgets/2014/ch1e.html

That seems like the most important metric.

You use the Ontario government as a cite!? LOL. I would trust RT before I would trust ANYTHING this wretched, incompetent, lying, corrupt government says about ANYTHING. There's a REASON McGuinty has been hiding out in the US since he was driven from office. If he was here he'd be attacked on the streets everywhere he goes.

[Argus]

In other words, they couldn't do anything right as far as you're concerned.

They could collectively swim out into Lake Ontario and drown themselves, the whole damned caucus. I'd be really approving of that.

[Smallc]

Smoke and mirrors. There will still be a deficit next year unless Ottawa helps them out. Their budget counts on good times rolling on, and lots more money from the feds. If the feds don't come through with more money both this year and next year, if the dollar drops and the cost of oil rises

If the price of oil rises, the dollar won't be falling. The budget will likely come in with less than a $4B budget this year. Ontario's equalization payments are now 40% smaller than they were at their peak.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Smallc

[On Guard for Thee]

Smoke and mirrors. There will still be a deficit next year unless Ottawa helps them out. Their budget counts on good times rolling on, and lots more money from the feds. If the feds don't come through with more money both this year and next year, if the dollar drops and the cost of oil rises - which they almost certainly will within the next few months, all their projections fall apart.

I think you'll find that if the price of oil rises, which it very likely won't anytime soon, the dollar would rise right along with it. Always good to do some wishful thinking though.

[Argus]

If the price of oil rises, the dollar won't be falling. The budget will likely come in with less than a $4B budget this year. Ontario's equalization payments are now 40% smaller than they were at their peak.

The price of oil will rise, and the dollar will rise with it, both of which are bad for Ontario's economy. And their rosy budget forecasts count on ever increasing transfers from the feds. Not that you can trust anything this contemptible government says.

That revenues are nonetheless projected to soar represents one part wishful thinking, one part federal transfers — Ontario now depends on Ottawa for nearly $25 billion annually, twice what it received a decade ago — and one part dodgy accounting.

And this gets us to the crux of the matter. Because even as the deficit, as the government defines it, is sliding towards zero, the province’s net debt is set to carry on growing at a tremendous clip: $12 billion this year, $8.5 billion next, $7.4 billion the year after that, another $10 billion the following. More and more of the government’s debt is now off-budget: where the province’s accumulated deficit, which used to be synonymous with its debt, is now at 26 per cent of GDP — alarming enough on its own — its net debt is half again as large.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/andrew-coyne-wynne-liberals-succeed-in-making-the-terms-budget-and-deficit-near-incomprehensible

Edited February 26, 2016 by Argus

[Shady]

The price of oil will rise, and the dollar will rise with it, both of which are bad for Ontario's economy. And their rosy budget forecasts count on ever increasing transfers from the feds. Not that you can trust anything this contemptible government says.

That revenues are nonetheless projected to soar represents one part wishful thinking, one part federal transfers — Ontario now depends on Ottawa for nearly $25 billion annually, twice what it received a decade ago — and one part dodgy accounting.

And this gets us to the crux of the matter. Because even as the deficit, as the government defines it, is sliding towards zero, the province’s net debt is set to carry on growing at a tremendous clip: $12 billion this year, $8.5 billion next, $7.4 billion the year after that, another $10 billion the following. More and more of the government’s debt is now off-budget: where the province’s accumulated deficit, which used to be synonymous with its debt, is now at 26 per cent of GDP — alarming enough on its own — its net debt is half again as large.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/andrew-coyne-wynne-liberals-succeed-in-making-the-terms-budget-and-deficit-near-incomprehensible

Your facts are going to get in the way of his meme.

[Shady]

At roughly $8,500 per capita, spending is not only one-third higher than under the Mike Harris Conservatives — after inflation, after population growth — it is 30 per cent higher than under Bob Rae and the NDP.

From the link. Shows how spending has spiraled way out of control.

[poochy]

The price of oil will rise, and the dollar will rise with it, both of which are bad for Ontario's economy. And their rosy budget forecasts count on ever increasing transfers from the feds. Not that you can trust anything this contemptible government says.

That revenues are nonetheless projected to soar represents one part wishful thinking, one part federal transfers — Ontario now depends on Ottawa for nearly $25 billion annually, twice what it received a decade ago — and one part dodgy accounting.

And this gets us to the crux of the matter. Because even as the deficit, as the government defines it, is sliding towards zero, the province’s net debt is set to carry on growing at a tremendous clip: $12 billion this year, $8.5 billion next, $7.4 billion the year after that, another $10 billion the following. More and more of the government’s debt is now off-budget: where the province’s accumulated deficit, which used to be synonymous with its debt, is now at 26 per cent of GDP — alarming enough on its own — its net debt is half again as large.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/andrew-coyne-wynne-liberals-succeed-in-making-the-terms-budget-and-deficit-near-incomprehensible

yea, that's a reasonable argument for people who haven't completely lost their minds. Unfortunately the target audience is growing smaller each day.

[Smallc]

Every province now gets more form Ottawa than a decade ago, thanks to the Canada Health and Canada Social transfer. Leave out that fact though, as it apparently doesn't matter.

[Argus]

Every province now gets more form Ottawa than a decade ago, thanks to the Canada Health and Canada Social transfer. Leave out that fact though, as it apparently doesn't matter.

I notice you don't comment on the fact that if Ontario's Finance Minister was running a private sector company he'd be hauled off in chains for accounting fraud that makes the CFO of Enron look like a piker.

I wasn't happy with Bob Rae. I didn't think a lot of David Peterson. I loathed Jean Chretien. But never in my life have I felt such complete contempt for a government at any level as I have for the corrupt, lying incompetents of the Ontario Liberals.

[Smallc]

I notice you don't comment on the fact that if Ontario's Finance Minister was running a private sector company he'd be hauled off in chains for accounting fraud that makes the CFO of Enron look like a piker.

Is that like the accounting changes the federal Conservatives made a couple of budgets ago? Would you haul them off too?

I wasn't happy with Bob Rae. I didn't think a lot of David Peterson. I loathed Jean Chretien. But never in my life have I felt such complete contempt for a government at any level as I have for the corrupt, lying incompetents of the Ontario Liberals.

Blaming them for things like increasing transfer payments that are guaranteed, and have been increasing for all provinces is nonsensical, and is probably a result of loathing that makes you less than objective.