The provincial budget has at least one city mayor giving his seal of approval.
Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie tells CJOY and Global News that he is very happy with what the budget announced in the legislature on Thursday delivered.
He is especially pleased with the amount of money that is being allocated to housing, mental health and addictions.
“I’m thankful with the government listening to the mayors, municipal associations, the Ontario Big City Mayors caucus,” said Guthrie.
“We see it on the ground. Everyone knows it is such a crisis and we really need the funding as soon as possible.”
The province is pledging $425 million for mental health services over the next three years. Another $202 million is going to homeless prevention and supportive housing programs.
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Guthrie is also happy to see money being set aside in the budget for the Highway 7 expansion between Guelph and Kitchener-Waterloo.
“I often joke, ‘It is one thing to see budgets, it’s another to see bulldozers,'” Guthrie said. “When I see the bulldozers actually moving on the ground to get that highway done, that is when I’ll be really excited.”
But as happy as he is with the spending being proposed, Guthrie also wants to see the government begin to pare down the deficit. The province is forecasting a budget deficit of $1.3 billion for this fiscal year before seeing a small surplus the next year, then a forecasted $4.4 billion surplus in 2025.
“The sooner they can eliminate the deficit, the more money the government will have to go to things everyone wants more and more of.”
Another Guelph politician, however, believes the budget doesn’t do enough.
Guelph MPP and Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner called it a “head-in-the-sand” budget, adding that it does nothing to help people in the province.
“We can’t prepare for a better future unless we tackle the multiple urgent crises that are affecting us today,” Schreiner said in a statement emphasizing five areas that he is most concerned about: climate, housing, health care, mental health and poverty.
Guthrie said in response, “There is some balance in the budget that can’t be ignored. At the end of the day, we are all taxpayers. All of the money comes out of one wallet.”
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