Finance Minister Charles Sousa will deliver the provincial budget this afternoon.
No major surprises are expected, since Premier Kathleen Wynne announced a 60% sell-off of Hydro One shares and gave the ok for beer sales in grocery stores last week.
It is all in an effort to raise $4-billion for infrastructure funding, but it has already drawn some criticism.
"Never once has the words privatize or sell-off crossed her lips, it's all about 'optimizing assets' and all of this language, which really is used to disguise what the province's actual intention is," says New Democrat MPP for London West Peggy Sattler.
The Hydro One shares will be sold through an initial public offering. The province will retain 40% ownership and remain in control. All other shareholders will be capped at 10% ownership.
Sattler says given London's position when it comes to health care and education, she hopes the Liberals will pay close attention to those sectors.
Just last month, the London Health Sciences Centre announced it would have to make cutbacks for the fourth straight year to balance its budget. Funding from the Ministry of Health is not enough to off-set increased costs, so $26-million in savings must be found.
"There are fewer services available for people. They can't get the services from their hospital, they can't get the services from community agencies. They are having to wait longer and longer to access the health care services they need and what that does is it triggers crisis in people," Sattler tells BlackburnNews.com.
As it stands right now, local high school teachers and the Thames Valley District School Board are working out a new contract. Teachers have been without a contract since August of 2014. Others in the Durham region and the Greater Toronto Area are walking off the job this week. Talks between the union and the province fell apart earlier this month.
"We've already seen an internal government document that reported their plans to cut $500-million from schools," notes Sattler.
The Liberals have not hinted as to what else the document will contain. The budget will be tabled around 4pm.
