2019 Ontario Budget: A Plan to Protect What Matters Most
Our government’s first budget, delivered on April 11th by Finance Minister Vic Fedeli, protects what matters most. The 2019 Ontario Budget is a comprehensive and sustainable plan that balances the budget in five years, stimulates job creation, and protects critical public services that people rely on every day. With this plan, the province is ensuring value for money and targeting spending to frontline services, while eliminating the deficit. Budget 2019 contains absolutely no new tax increases, making investments in health, education and infrastructure. This will benefit residents and businesses across Dufferin-Caledon through improved service at hospitals and schools, while ensuring that future generations won’t be burdened with an unmanageable debt.
Budget 2019 reinforced our government’s vision for making Ontario safer. Ensuring the safety and security of the people is the government’s most fundamental responsibility and the people of Ontario have a right to feel safe at home and in their communities. That’s why, our government has committed to strengthening police services, fighting gun and gang violence, and building essential infrastructure for safety and security in communities.
To protect what matters most, the 2019 Ontario Budget will invest $17 billion over 10 years to increase capacity and modernize hospitals across Ontario, eliminate hallway health care and improve quality of services. This important investment will further enhance the quality of care at Headwaters Health Care Centre for residents across Dufferin-Caledon. We are also creating 15,000 new long-term care beds over the next five years and upgrading 15,000 older long-term care beds to provide more appropriate care to patients with complex health conditions across the province.
Our government is building an education system for students, by investing $13 billion over 10 years in capital grants to modernize and build schools across Ontario. This investment includes $1.4 billion that will be invested in school improvements and construction this fiscal year, which will directly benefit schools across the Peel District School Board, Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, Conseil scolaire Viamonde, and the Upper Grand District School Board in Dufferin-Caledon.
One new initiative in our budget is the proposed Childcare Access and Relief from Expenses (CARE) tax credit, which will provide relief to families across Dufferin-Caledon. The CARE tax credit would be one of the most flexible child care initiatives ever introduced, putting parents at the centre of the decision-making process. CARE would help low- and middle-income families with up to 75 per cent of their eligible child care expenses and allow families to access a broad range of child care options, including care in centres, homes and camps.
Another key item in the budget is dental care for low-income seniors. At least two-thirds of low-income seniors do not have access to dental care – and many end up in our emergency rooms as a result. The government is investing $90 million starting at the end of summer 2019 to establish this new program to help Ontario’s low-income seniors.
Other key initiatives in Budget 2019 include a new Ontario Job Creation Investment Incentive to help businesses grow and create jobs, a “Digital First” strategy to modernize Service Ontario’s top 10 transactions and other government services, and a new auto insurance plan that puts drivers first. This is especially significant for residents of Dufferin-Caledon, given the high proportion of drivers across the riding who will benefit from improved auto insurance and more affordable rates.
If you have any questions about the Budget, please email me at sylvia.jonesco@pc.ola.org or call 1-800-265-1603.
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