How will Ontario ever pay back massive spending during the COVID-19 pandemic?
In a word, jobs.
"We saw before the pandemic, leading the country, head and shoulders above in job creation," said Stan Cho, the Parliamentary Assistant to Finance Minister Rod Phillips the day after his government tabled a budget for the record books. "Jobs means people are working, people are paying taxes. That's more revenue for the province. We're confident, with the measures that we put in place, that we're going to see that revenue generation once again."
The Ontario budget calls for $187-billion in spending in 2020-21. By comparison, last year's budget called for $163.4-billion in spending. Of course, that was before the pandemic.
Two years ago, the Ford government told taxpayers the province's spending was out of control. It set about cutting back, but Cho told BlackburnNews.com Friday morning the pandemic simply changed priorities. Not spending now, would hurt recovery down the road.
"We absolutely have to be able to afford this. We must invest in the health and safety of the people we govern," he said. "We have to be responsible with our spending, but we also have to make sure it is sustainable. I believe that once COVID-19 is in the rear-view mirror, with our additional recovery plan we're going to return to those days of prosperity very soon."
The budget contained a 16 per cent break on hydro bills for eligible large and medium commercial businesses. Likewise, industrial firms can apply for a 14 per cent cut. However, Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath complained there was little in the budget for small businesses.
Cho takes exception. He said the Ontario government has done a lot to support one of the greatest job generators in our economy, small, family-run enterprises. Among the measures, he cited hydro relief and tax cuts.
"Let's just take those tax cuts. The Employer Health Tax is simply a tax on jobs. During the pandemic, we heard from thousands of small businesses that said, 'Hey look, I'm just a small business with payroll. I'm paying too much in these fixed costs, this fixed tax. We cut the EHT."
Similarly, he defended his government's decision to leave out new spending for long-term care facilities.
Earlier in the week, Premier Doug Ford announced his government will increase how much care residents receive daily to four hours by 2025. Ford said he wanted to consult with stakeholders before fixing an amount to it, but Cho said it is even more complicated.
"A long-term care system that has been ignored for decades, unfortunately, can't be fixed overnight," he said pointing to his government's creation before the pandemic of a separate ministry to oversee long-term care. "This is something we've been working on for months. To create that unprecedented amount of care, you have to lay the infrastructure early, and that infrastructure is quite complex."
Usually, the Ontario government tables its budget in March. It pushed that back to October this year because of uncertainty surrounding the pandemic and associated spending.
