SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
February 28, 2023 09:00AM
  • Feb/28/23 10:40:00 a.m.

I’m happy to address the question from the Leader of the Opposition. When I think about why I got into government: For 15 years, we saw a record amount of spending, supported for three years by the NDP, I submit—from 2011 to 2014—as I have mentioned many times, in the history of Confederation up to 2003, $130 billion of debt; the next 15 years, almost $200 billion in debt.

Did those spending dollars go into health care? Did they go into building highways so people could move goods and people to market? Did the spending go into building more subways to connect the hundreds of thousands of people that move to Ontario every single year? Where are those people going to live? Where are they going to live? They have to live in housing. That’s what this government is accelerating to make sure we get it done.

That being said, let me also think about almost a year ago, when we tabled our budget for the people of Ontario and we took that budget to the people of Ontario. It included gas tax relief, because the cost of gas and the cost of everything was going up. It included a doubling of the low-income individuals and families tax credit so that the lowest-income workers in this province got a break. It helped seniors with the seniors’ home affordability tax credit.

But did we stop there? No. In the fall economic statement, what did we do? We increased ODSP funding by 5%. We indexed it to inflation for the first time ever. And we didn’t stop there. We increased the earnings exemption. We provided the GAINS, the doubling of support for seniors and the guaranteed annual income. Also, we continued the gas tax relief for another year.

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