On November 12, 2020, David Piccini, Member of Provincial Parliament for NorthumberlandPeterborough South, hosted a Virtual Budget Breakfast with Ontario’s Finance Minister to discuss the
recently released budget with individuals and businesses in the community. The virtual breakfast provided the opportunity for questions and a deeper dive into the contents of the 2020 Ontario Budget.
Ontario’s Action Plan: Protect, Support, Recover is the next phase of a comprehensive action plan to respond to the serious health and economic impacts of COVID-19. Ontario’s Action Plan now sets out a total of $45 billion in support over three years to make available the necessary health resources to continue protecting people, deliver critical programs and tax measures to support individuals, families and job creators impacted by the virus, and lay the groundwork for a robust long-term economic recovery for the province.
“Every negative economic statistic represents a person who has lost their job, an anxious small business owner or a family struggling to make ends meet,” said MPP David Piccini. “We’re providing new support to those who have been hardest hit, including parents, seniors and small business owners, while making sure we are removing barriers to enable the necessary growth for job creation and Ontario’s long-term economic recovery.”
The 2020 Budget is protecting frontline health care, supporting people and employers, and laying the foundation for economic recovery across the province, including people in Northumberland-Peterborough South by:
· Providing $380 million to parent through another round of payments – $200 per child up to 12 years old and $250 per child and youth with special needs up to 21 years old, through the Support for Learners initiative.
· Proposing the new Seniors’ Home Safety Tax Credit for the 2021 taxation year – a 25 per cent credit on eligible renovations of up to $10,000 – to help seniors stay in their homes longer by
making their homes safer and more accessible.
· Investing over $100 million over two years for the Community Building Fund to support community tourism, cultural and sport organizations that are experiencing significant financial
pressures due to the pandemic.
· Making additional investments of over $680 million over the next four years in broadband infrastructure which, combined with its prior commitments, increases Ontario’s investment to a
historic nearly $1 billion to ensure communities across the province are connected.
· Reducing property taxes on job creators and levelling the playing field by lowering high Business Education Tax (BET) rates for 94 per cent of all business properties in Ontario, to a rate of 0.88
per cent. For many employers, this represents a reduction of 30 per cent.
· Committing to provide Ontario residents with support of up to 20 per cent for eligible Ontario tourism expenses to encourage them to safely discover Ontario in 2021.
Protect
In total, Ontario’s COVID-19 health response is now a projected $15.2 billion. The government is making available $4 billion in 2021-22 and a further $2 billion in 2022-23 to ensure the Province can remain responsive to evolving needs in the fight against the pandemic. The 2020–21 spending includes $2.8 billion to support the Province’s Fall Preparedness Plan for Health, Long-Term Care and Education – the most comprehensive and robust plan in the country to respond to the second wave of COVID-19. It also includes additional funding to support hospital beds, address the surgical backlog and purchase additional influenza vaccines.
The government is also investing an additional $572 million in Ontario’s hospitals to support additional costs of COVID-19 including testing, assessment centres, laboratory and medical equipment, and PPE.
This brings the total funding to hospitals above and beyond what was provided last year to over $2.5 billion. The Province is investing more than $18 billion in capital grants over 10 years to build new and expanded hospital infrastructure and address urgent upgrades, including repairs and maintenance to help modernize hospitals across Ontario.
To protect loved ones in long-term care from a second wave, and to address long standing issues in the system, Ontario is providing over half a billion dollars to enable necessary renovations and measures to improve infection prevention and control, allow for the purchase of more personal protective equipment (PPE), and to build a strong health care workforce. While Ontario’s Long-Term Care COVID-19
Commission is completing its review, the government is acting immediately to protect Ontario’s most vulnerable people. The Province plans to increase average daily direct care of long-term care residents from a nurse or personal support worker to four hours a day. This additional care will be phased in over the next four years and will make Ontario the leader among Canadian provinces. This ambitious plan will require significant changes in the long-term care sector, including recruiting and training tens of thousands of new staff.
Support
The government is now delivering an estimated $13.5 billion in total support for people and job creators as part of Ontario’s Action Plan. This additional relief will ensure families, seniors, businesses and workers are supported through the second wave of COVID-19 and beyond.
The Ontario government remains committed to supporting job creators through this unprecedented time.
The government is making available$300 million in relief is available for eligible businesses in regions where the Province determines modified Stage 2 public health restrictions are necessary, or, going forward, in areas categorized as Control or Lockdown. This will help cover fixed costs such as property taxes and energy bills. The government is also providing an additional $1.8 billion in the Support for People and Jobs Fund over the next two years to remain responsive to emerging needs and continue providing supports for the people of Ontario.
Recover
While COVID-19 will impact Ontario and the entire world for the foreseeable future, the 2020 Budget begins to build the foundation for a strong economic recovery fuelled by growth. The government is planning to invest $4.8 billion in initiatives that will support jobs now, while removing barriers that would hold Ontario back from a strong recovery from COVID-19. Among the major initiatives proposed by the government are a reduction of job-killing electricity prices, reducing taxes on jobs, connecting unserved and underserved communities with a historic investment in broadband infrastructure, and providing workers with skills training – including those impacted by the pandemic, such as tourism and hospitality workers – to help them connect to jobs needing high-demand skills.
Ontario is going a step further to make available additional support for the employers most affected by COVID-19. The government has heard from some municipalities that they would like additional tools to provide more targeted tax relief to job creators in their community. Ontario is responding to requests from local governments by proposing to provide municipalities with the ability to cut property tax for small businesses and a provincial commitment to consider matching these reductions. This would provide small businesses as much as $385 million in total municipal and provincial property tax relief by 2022–23, depending on municipal adoption.
The province is also ending a tax on jobs for an additional 30,000 employers by proposing to make permanent the Employer Health Tax (EHT) exemption increase from $490,000 to $1 million. This would save private-sector employers $360 million in 2021–22 that could be reinvested in jobs and growth.
About 90 per cent of employers would pay no EHT with this additional relief.
When employers are looking at Ontario as a place to do business, it is clear the province’s high commercial and industrial electricity prices are a barrier to investment that causes some of them to go elsewhere. The 2020 Budget outlines a plan to reduce the burden on employers of Ontario’s high-cost contracts with non-hydro renewable energy producers, which will be wound down once and for all.
Starting on January 1, 2021, a portion of the cost of these contracts, entered under the previous government, will be funded by the Province, not the ratepayers. This electricity cost relief would free up money that could be better spent creating jobs. Medium size and larger industrial and commercial employers would save about 14 and 16 per cent respectively, on average, on their bills starting in 2021.
This means Ontario will go from having some of the least competitive electricity prices to prices that are more competitive than the average in the United States.
The 2020 Budget provides transparency amidst a world of uncertainty, by outlining a flexible mediumterm fiscal plan based on the latest economic projections. It also presents alternative scenarios demonstrating how the province’s fiscal outlook could change depending on the pace of the economic recovery. The government is projecting a deficit of $38.5 billion for 2020–21, which is unchanged from the deficit forecast at the time of the 2020–21 First Quarter Finances and reflects urgent spending necessary for the fight against COVID-19. Over the medium term, the government is forecasting steadily declining deficits of $33.1 billion in 2021–22 and $28.2 billion in 2022–23. Acknowledging the continued uncertainty of the global pandemic, the government plans to table a multi-year plan including a path to balance in the 2021 Budget by March 31, 2021.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
