Key promise highlights from Ontario Liberal 2022 platform

TORONTO — The Ontario Liberals released their costed platform Monday. Here are some key promises:

• Balance the budget by 2026-27, though making room for “unforeseen circumstances.”
• Build 1.5 million homes over 10 years, work with municipalities to expand zoning options, and bring back rent control.
• Establish the Ontario Home Building Corporation to finance and build affordable homes; build 78,000 new social and community homes, 38,000 homes in supportive housing and 22,000 new homes for Indigenous people.
• Increase the minimum wage to $16 an hour in January then develop regional living wages.
• Provide 10 paid sick days for all workers and study a four-day work week.
• Remove the provincial portion of the HST from prepared foods under $20.
• Introduce a surtax of one per cent on corporate profit above $1 billion.
• Introduce a new tax bracket for Ontarians with taxable income of over $500,000 per year, taxing at a rate of 15.16 per cent.
• Extend $10-a-day child care to after-school care.
• Provide free tuition for early childhood education college programs.
• Top up the federal 18-month parental leave program so benefits aren’t reduced and increase the provincial child-care tax credit.
• Cut the cost of transit rides across the province to $1 until 2024.
• Provide up to $9,500 in rebates on purchases of electric vehicles.
• End for-profit long-term care by 2028.
• Increase funding for home care and help 400,000 more seniors get home care by 2026.
• Increase Old Age Security by $1,000 per year for eligible seniors.
• Hire 100,000 health-care workers and train 3,000 new mental health and addictions professionals.
• Clear the diagnostic and surgery backlog with a $1-billion investment.
• Establish maximum wait times for surgeries.
• Enroll anyone without an employer benefits plan in a portable benefits plan, including self-employed, gig and contract workers.
• Invest an additional $3 billion in mental health and addictions services and lift the cap on new Consumption and Treatment Services sites.
• Forgive all student loans for nurses, paramedics and other health-care workers on the front-lines of COVID-19.
• Cut carbon and methane pollution by more than 50 per cent by 2030, transition to a fully clean energy supply, ban new natural gas plants and phase out reliance on them.
• Expand the Greenbelt and designate 30 per cent of Ontario land as protected, up from 10 per cent.
• Divert and recycle 60 per cent of waste from landfills by 2030 and 85 per cent by 2050.
• Eliminate corporate taxes for two years for businesses most impacted by the pandemic.
• Cap class sizes at 20 students for all grades and hire 10,000 more teachers.
• Double OSAP funding and give “significantly” more grants, and eliminate interest on provincial student loans.
• Increase disability support payment rates by 20 per cent and reintroduce a basic income pilot.
• Use ranked ballots for the next provincial election, and allow municipalities to use it, and explore other voting changes such as lowering the voting age.