WATCH ABOVE: Alan Carter reports on the newly released 2015 Ontario provincial budget.
TORONTO – The 2015 Ontario budget will be wrapped in far less political drama than in previous years when the main question being asked was “will there be an election?”
This time around, there won’t be an election. With a majority government, Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals will see their budget pass.
So why should you care? The budget is a financial blueprint of how the government says it wants to spend your money in the years to come.
Is Ontario still on the ‘path to balance’?
The Liberal government set out its “path to balance” – how it planned on achieving a balanced budget – in the 2014-2015 budget, projecting the government will have reached balance and achieved a small surplus by 2017-2018.
The government projected it would have a $12.5 billion deficit this year, and beat that target. Finance Minister Charles Sousa announced in March that Ontario’s deficit was $10.9 billion. Good, right? Well, maybe. The actual deficit is up from last year’s $10.5 billion but did beat the government’s target.
Tomorrow’s budget will have updated numbers and more detail about how the government plans to hit its targets.
Transit, transit, transit
Kathleen Wynne won a majority last June campaigning on public transit investments and tomorrow’s budget should divulge more details about how the party plans to spend the nearly $30 billion over ten years promised for transit projects.
Who wants to buy some government assets?
The Ontario government has said it will sell some government assets in order to pay for its abundance of transit promises. The government recently announced it would sell Hydro One, which will net an estimated $4 billion for transportation infrastructure.
But will there be other asset sales? Thursday’s budget should release more details on that too.
The Ontario Retirement Pension Plan
Wynne announced during last year’s election that the province would move to create a pension plan for people living in Ontario. Thursday’s budget should explain more about who qualifies for the plan and how it will be administered.
Globalnews.ca live coverage
Globalnews.ca will have live coverage of the budget tomorrow beginning around 4 p.m. when the finance minister stands in the Ontario Legislature to deliver his budget speech.
Alan Carter will be live tweeting updates from the speech, highlights from the budget, and what the opposition has to say about the Liberal government.
Globalnews.ca will be live streaming the finance minister’s speech and posting updates in the blog below.
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