Wynne banking on Trudeau’s helping hand to reach a balanced budget

Students from middle class families will also see a break on school fees.

But it was Sousa’s announcement of free college and university tuition for students from families making $50,000 or less that had many in the province talking.

Under the new program, half of students from families with incomes of $83,000 will qualify for non-repayable grants for tuition and no student will receive less than they can now receive. Some seniors will pay more for prescriptions and wine prices will rise. “We are pleased that the government has heard us and has provided targeted, much-needed funding to long-term care residents with behavioural issues”.

But if Ottawa doesn’t make good on their promise, that would chop $1,000 from the low-income grant totals showcased in the budget, which would leave tuition higher than available non-loan assistance. “But I’m still concerned that the post-secondary education commitment in this province is bottom of the barrel compared to most other provinces – we still have the lowest per capita funding and we still have serious concerns about access”.

“We can turn our backs and watch the low carbon economy go by”, Sousa said on Thursday, “or we can be leaders in it”, insisting that by extracting money from Ontario’s existing businesses, the government can masterfully bring forth new ones.

Drummond says the bulk of the money earmarked for infrastructure is likely to go to provinces hit hardest by the drop in the price of oil, but “some will come our way”. Over the four year term, program expenses will grow by 2 per cent, despite the Drummond Report’s recommendation for expenses to be held to 1.4 per cent growth, and despite last year’s budget commitment to keep program spending growth at 1 per cent until 2018. But the plan likely means a fuel price jump of 4.3 cents per litre.

Or even to at least start paying down Ontario’s unstoppable debt, set to grow another $30 billion over the next three years.

Revenue will also get a lift from a carbon pricing system starting next year, which is expected to generate C$1.9 billion annually, starting in 2017-18 at cost of about C$13 a month to energy bills for households.

“There’s been no consultation, no warning and for seniors budgeting on fixed incomes, which most are, this is a huge new cost”, she said. However, the program comes at a cost to Ontario ratepayers.

“The shortcomings of today’s budget make it all the more essential for this government to move forward with bold plans to close Ontario’s gender wage gap and reform Ontario’s outdated labour laws so that every worker is lifted out of poverty and fairness becomes the law of the land”. The deficit for the 2017 budget is projected to come in at $4.6 billion.

The federal government has signalled that there will be a larger-than-expected deficit, in order to help pay for programs and investments promised during the campaign.