Ontario heading for election next month as NDP rejects budget
A June election is a certainty after NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said her party could not support the budget tabled by Premier Kathleen Wynne’s minority.
Ontario voters are heading to the polls next month.
A June election is a certainty after NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said her party could not support the budget tabled by rookie Premier Kathleen Wynne’s minority Liberals.
Speaking to reporters about the budget for the first time Friday morning — she declined to discuss the spending plan the day it was unveiled — Horwath said “it’s time for a change” in the province.
“I have lost confidence in Kathleen Wynne and her ability to deliver,” the NDP leader said at Queen’s Park.
“I cannot in good conscience support a government that people don’t trust anymore,” she said.
Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath described the Liberal budget as "a mad dash to escape the scandals by promising the moon and the stars."
“We will be voting against this budget.”
Horwath said the left-leaning budget in which the government “threw (in) the kitchen sink” was not enough to keep her on side with the Liberals.
“It’s a mad dash to escape the scandals by promising the moon and the stars,” she said of the fiscal blueprint.
Despite the promises of faster home care for seniors, lower auto insurance rates and a financial accountability office — all demanded by the NDP in last spring’s budget — people are still waiting, Horwath reminded journalists in a 20-minute news conference.
With NDP MPPs watching from the sidelines, she said the minority Liberals have been “high on promises and low on delivery,” making it time to pull the plug on NDP support.
Horwath would not reveal any of her election platform, saying that is “for another day.”
Wynne had given her until next Thursday to give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to the budget.
The government’s next move was not immediately clear, but the premier is expected to visit Lieut.-Gov. David Onley and ask him to dissolve the legislature in the coming days, paving the way for an election, likely on June 12.
“I'm disappointed that (Horwath) wouldn't have a meeting with me. I think there's a lot in this budget that needs to be implemented in the province,” Wynne said in an interview with Belleville radio station CJBQ moments after the NDP leader's announcement.
Wynne said she would be making a statement later in the day about the timing of the election.
On Thursday, Finance Minister Charles Sousa tabled a $130.4-billion spending plan designed to appeal to New Democrat MPPs and, if necessary, serve as the Liberal campaign platform should the minority government be toppled.
“I would be very proud to take this plan to the people,” Wynne said on CP24.
The Liberals have been expecting the NDP to withdraw their support — sources told the Star the governing party has spent $200,000 wrapping two campaign buses and equipping them for the election.
Those buses, which feature Wynne’s beaming visage, are housed in a Midland warehouse.
The Tories, who have been on election footing for months, are also readying campaign buses.
It’s not yet clear what the New Democrats’ plans are for the hustings.
Sousa’s budget, which is backed by Ontario Federation of Labour president Sid Ryan and other NDP-friendly union leaders, included a new Ontario Retirement Pension Plan, similar to the Canada Pension Plan.
The ORPP, which the New Democrats have long called for, would force Ontarians to earmark a small part of their paycheques for retirement unless they have an employer’s pension plan.
Thursday’s budget also featured 1 per cent increase for Ontario Works recipients and those getting Ontario Disability Support Program benefits.
It also boosted the Ontario Child Benefit, which helps low-income families, from $1,210 a year per child to $1,310.
As well, over the next decade the Grits pledged $29 billion for transportation infrastructure, including public transit, $11 billion for school construction and repair, and $11.4 billion on hospitals.
The Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Ontario Nurses Association and Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union, all urged Horwath to back the budget.
Only Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), said the NDP should join with the Progressive Conservatives in toppling the Grits.
Thomas took shots at his fellow union leaders after Horwath’s news conference for saying the NDP should support the budget, which also gives $4 hourly raises to personal support workers in the home care system.
“They’re afraid of Tim Hudak,” Thomas said of the Progressive Conservative leader whom he called “anti-union.”
“I’m not afraid of Tim Hudak,” Thomas added, saying Unifor president Jerry Dias “supported the budget without reading it” and “I’m disappointed in Brother Ryan,” a reference to the OFL president.
Hudak, who has been raring for an election ever since former premier Dalton McGuinty beat him in 2011, took a swipe at labour Friday.
“The big government union bosses, they’ve been running the province now for 10 years. They support the Liberals, the NDP, they got their way,” the PC chief told CP24.
“But that didn’t help out the million people who are out of work or are struggling in a part-time job,” he said.
“If you want a premier who’s going to say ‘yes, how high?’ to the union bosses then vote for Ms. Horwath or Ms. Wynne,” said Hudak, adding only he will be looking out for taxpayers.
He said Ontarians are looking for leadership that can keep a better eye on the public purse and scarce taxpayer dollars in the wake of the $1.1 billion gas plants scandal and $900 million in tax increases in the budget.
“What we need now is a premier and a team that are competent economic managers,” he told reporters in Mississauga before Horwath’s dramatic announcement.
He made his comments in front of the cancelled Mississauga gas plant, one of two scrapped by McGuinty before the 2011 election that reduced the Liberals to a minority. The other was in Oakville.
Opposition parties accused the Liberals of using taxpayer money to scrap the plants, moving them to Napanee and Sarnia, in a “seat saver” move to protect five Liberal MPPs in Oakville, Mississauga, and Etobicoke.
Unlike Hudak and Horwath, Wynne, who succeeded McGuinty on Feb. 11, 2013, has never led a party in a province-wide campaign.
Ontario’s first female premier — and Canada’s first openly gay premier — she is a political pioneer.
But under the Don Valley West MPP, the Liberals have not fared well in byelections since she took over.
They’ve lost seats previously held by cabinet ministers in Etobicoke, London and Windsor, and finished third in Niagara Falls, which they had represented since McGuinty’s first victory in 2003.
