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Jobs
Liberals
In their overall long-term plan for creating more jobs, the Liberals include everything but the kitchen sink: full-day kindergarten, the 30-per-cent post-secondary grant and the $130 billion they plan to spend on infrastructure to make it more attractive for companies to locate in Ontario. But the central focus of the Liberal’s job strategy is its 10-year, $2.5-billion “Jobs and Prosperity Fund”, which includes $40 million a year for the agri-food sector. Although the high-profile announcements look good politically, they’re extremely expensive: Wynne agreed to sink $220 million into Cisco in a 10-year deal to create a minimum 1,700 jobs, and $120 million into OpenText for 1,200 jobs. The case for the deals is that these are multinationals that could choose to put high-paying jobs anywhere, and having them here means spinoff benefits and potential future growth that’ll be good for all of us. But in the short-term, it means transferring tax dollars to certain profitable corporations, while actual long-term benefits are extremely difficult to prove.
PCs
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last five weeks, you’ve surely heard of the Million Jobs Plan. The Conservatives put out a plan defining how many jobs would be created by each of the measures a PC government would take over the next eight years. For example, the Tories contend that cutting the corporate tax rate by 30 per cent would create almost 120,000 jobs, while reducing gridlock in the Toronto area would create 96,000. The baseline growth — also known as doing nothing — would create 523,200 jobs, according the PC platform. All in all, the Conservatives list a total of 11 measures that they say would create one million jobs. But there’s a but: it turns out that the PCs misread their own studies, making an elementary math error and counted the jobs that could be created many times over. Most economists agree the “million” jobs estimate is way off. And in addition to creating jobs, the Tories would cut 100,000 public service positions. It’s unclear where they would all come from, but they’ve committed to doing away with the Ontario Power Authority and say many, if not most, of the cuts will come from attrition.
New Democrats
Like the PCs, the New Democrats would scrap the “corporate welfare” jobs grants, and instead impose a “strings-attached” tax credit for employers to help hire new employees. The “Job Creation Tax Credit,” worth $250 million a year, would fund up to $5,000 of a new employee’s salary. The NDP claims this credit would help create up to 170,000 jobs, while critics of the plan argue that it would simply subsidize the salaries of folks who employers were going to hire anyway. The New Democrats would also cut the small business tax from 4.5 to three per cent by 2016, which would put $290 million into the pockets of small business owners, who would presumably use that money to hire people. They’re also proposing an investment tax credit for Ontario companies that invest in buildings, machinery, and equipment, as well as topping up a federal-provincial program that helps retrain unemployed older workers.
Tax plans
Liberals
In order to help pay for the $3 billion in transit infrastructure the Liberals are planning to spend in each of the next 10 years, they’re promising to raise a number of taxes that they say will bring in $1.3 billion by 2016. These include a one point increase in the personal-income tax rate for those making more than $150,000 per year, a tobacco tax increase of 1.6 cents per cigarette, and a tax on aviation fuel. The Liberals are also proposing to phase out the small business deduction for Canadian companies with more than $10 million in taxable capital. The measure would raise $40 to $50 million in revenue per year over the next three years.
PCs
Lowering the corporate tax rate to 10 per cent immediately, and to 8.5 per cent after the budget is balanced in 2016 is at the centre of the PC tax plan. Instead of helping only a few companies with grants the way the Liberals do, argue the Conservatives, they’d give all companies a break by lowering the general tax rate. That would take about $600 million out of the province’s coffers this year, and $1 billion by 2017, according to the PC platform. Critics point out that Ontario already has a relatively low corporate tax rate in North American terms, while others argue that companies don’t necessarily use tax savings to create more jobs. However, the PCs are also promising to lower personal income taxes by an average of 10 per cent starting in 2018.
New Democrats
Raising the general corporate income tax rate by one point to 12.5 per cent is one way the New Democrats would fund their transit infrastructure plans. The tax increase would raise an addition $680 million in the first year, and $760 million in the fourth. In addition, they’d stop the planned phase-out of the input tax credit restrictions. The Liberal government put a temporary hold on certain tax credits large companies could claim back in 2009, when the HST was introduced. The restriction was to be lifted starting next year, but the New Democrats would prevent that, adding $150 million to the provincial coffers in 2015, and up to $600 million by 2017. On the other hand, they’d cut the small business tax rate from 4.5 to three per cent over the next three years.
Transit/Transportation
Liberals
With congestion in the Greater Toronto Area reaching quasi-crisis levels, all parties are now vowing to throw money at the problem. The Liberals have the most fleshed-out plan, promising to spend $29 billion over the next decade. About $15 billion would be directed at the GTA and Hamilton, while $14 billion would be doled out to the rest of the province. A lot of the specifics are aimed at the Toronto area, such as electrifying the GO train system so it would run more frequently. The Liberals have specifically mentioned funding Ottawa’s second-phase of light rail expansion. Having backtracked from a plan to implement new revenue “tools” to raise the, the Liberals are now looking to fund transit expansion through a series of minor tax hikes. As well, they’re counting on federal government contributions and are willing to raise as much as $7 billion in new debt. Also of note, the Liberals are promising to spend $1 billion on transportation infrastructure to develop the mineral deposit sites in the Ring of Fire area, even if the federal government doesn’t match the funds.
PCs
With possibly the most GTA-centric plan, the PCs say they’ll spend $2 billion a year on transportation infrastructure but not until the budget is balanced, which they say will be by 2016 (a year earlier than the Liberals and New Democrats say they’ll eliminate the deficit). Hudak would scrap light-rail expansion plans on either end of Toronto, as well as cancel LRT projects for Mississauga, Brampton and Hamilton, but is committing to more subways, particularly an east-west relief line in downtown Toronto. Just this week, Hudak said his government would not fund the second phase of Ottawa’s light-rail plan. On the roads front, Hudak would upload the responsibility for Hwy. 174 in Eastern Ontario, as well as expand highways 400, 410 and 403.
New Democrats
Similar to the Liberal plans, the NDP will dedicate $29 billion over the next decade for transit and transportation projects across the province. While the official platform mention only Toronto-area projects such increased GO train service to Kitchener-Waterloo, St. Catharines and Niagara Falls, leader Andrea Horwath has in the past been supportive of Ottawa’s LRT expansion plans. They’d reinstate a program to help municipalities replace transit buses, at a cost of $60 million, as well as restore passenger service on Ontario Northland Rail for $20 million annually. The New Democrats are also upping the highway ante, promising to spend an additional $250 million to widen 60 kilometres of highways each year, at least half of which would be in northern Ontario.
Energy
Liberals
The Liberals have a long-term plan based on conservation, continuing contracts with wind- and solar-energy companies, and refurbishing a handful of nuclear reactors to extend their lives by decades. The party admits the obvious: that electricity bills have risen over the last 10 years, and that they’ll continue to increase for several years to come. But the Liberals say that’s making up for decades of starving Ontario’s electricity system, to the point where we had daily warnings of brownouts in summer and a multibillion-dollar debt on the books from Ontario Hydro. They’ve also all but shut down coal generating plants in Ontario, slashing pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions. They say they’d end the special debt-retirement charge on residential hydro bills by 2016, at the same time as their arbitrary “clean-energy benefit” rebate ends. They’d also merge two of Ontario Hydro’s successor agencies, the Ontario Power Authority and the Independent Electricity System Operator.
PCs
The Tories will end new contracts with wind and solar companies, pulling back hard on the Liberals’ signature Green Energy Act. If more electricity is needed, the Tories say they’d seek to sign deals to buy it from Quebec and Manitoba — taking advantage of their hydro resources, though neither province would have loads of surplus power without building new dams — and to build new nuclear reactors. Inexpensive electricity has been a major industrial advantage for Ontario, the Tories say, and the Liberals have squandered it by letting prices rise. The PCs say they’d abolish the Ontario Power Authority outright (though somebody would have to take on the long-term planning it does for the electricity supply) and would attack the salaries of workers in the energy system, many of whom are paid more than $100,000 a year.
New Democrats
The biggest single problem the NDP see in electricity is the price paid by individual consumers, so the party would try to take sales tax off energy bills (this would require federal co-operation). The NDP would take the four agencies that rose from the ashes of Ontario Hydro and merge them again, plus cap the salaries of the executives who run the system. They’d create a fund to make interest-free loans to homeowners who want to install solar panels and make energy-efficient retrofits. Beyond electricity, the NDP say they’d regulate the price of natural gas more tightly to prevent price spikes. A regulator already approves price changes four times a year but the party says they’d add fairness to consumers to the factors that would have to be considered.
Education
Liberals
The Liberals are mainly running on their record, which includes introducing full-day kindergarten over the last five years, increasing scores on standardized tests, and a 30-per-cent tuition rebate program for low- and middle-income students in post-secondary schools. They’d spend $50 million a year for three years on new classroom technology, encourage more school-based fitness programs, fund math tutoring, and expand a school-breakfast program to supply meals to 56,000 more kids. Also, the Liberals promise a $2-an-hour pay hike for early childhood educators in licensed daycares (costing $269 million a year after two years), whose wages lag those of similarly qualified people who’ve gone to work for school boards in full-day kindergarten classrooms.
PCs
After railing against full-day kindergarten for years, the Tories say they’ve accepted that it’s here to stay — the last batch of schools to join the program roll it out this fall and have already hired people and made plans. But the Tories would change the model, from having a teacher and an early childhood educator lead larger classes to having one adult at a time leading smaller classes, a tweak they say could save $200 million a year. Also, although the promise hasn’t been discussed in detail in the campaign, the Tories say they’d refocus the curriculum on basic skills. They’d have times-tables drills replace the “discovery” process in math classes in junior grades, for instance. They’d cancel the 30-per-cent tuition grant for postsecondary students from low- and middle-income families as a luxury we can’t afford.
New Democrats
Education isn’t a major feature of the NDP platform, but the party says it would make sure physical education is properly funded so kids get more exercise in their school days. The party promises an “open schools” program aimed at keeping schools in neighbourhoods where they might otherwise close, in recognition of their value as community centres and the importance of having schools close to where people live. The NDP would revise the Liberals’ school-nutrition plans to add a few million more dollars per year and emphasize buying local food and teaching basic cooking skills.
Health
Liberals
The Liberals say they will continue work in the some of the health reforms they have begun. Their campaign pledges include a guarantee that every Ontario resident has access to a primary care provider. They will also increase funding for the province’s mental health and addictions strategy by $220 million over three years, including more supportive housing and expand a program aimed at getting the heaviest users of the health system more support and better care to reduce their hospital visits. The so-called Health Links program provides a personal care co-ordinator for each patient. The party also pledges to expand access to children’s dental benefits for low-income families in its first year and extend health benefits to all low-income Ontarians over a decade. Among other health related promises, the Liberals say they will invest $750 million in home and community care and develop an end-of-life strategy.
PCs
The Tories released a comprehensive white paper on health care prior to the election that spells out their plan to close the province’s 14 Local Health Integration Networks (which in 2011 had a total budget of $68 million) as well as community care access centres, which co-ordinate home care, and to replace them with health hubs. The Tories say the move would result in the shedding of 2,000 health bureaucrats and a savings of $800 million. That money, they say, would be reinvested in front-line services. The PCs also propose giving patients choice about whether to accept government-funded home-care services or to buy their own privately with an equivalent amount of money. Critics fear the health hubs would lead to major hospital mergers. The PC also say Ontario needs better mental health and addictions policies and that it needs to make better use of data on best practices, especially when it comes to treating chronic illnesses. The PCs also say they will make it mandatory for school children to have 45 minutes of physical activity a day.
New Democrats
The NDP promise to cut emergency room wait times in half by hiring 250 nurse practitioners and boosting staff in emergency rooms. They also says they will create 1,400 more long-term care beds and establish a five-day home care guarantee, as well as opening new 24-hour family health clinics.The 50 per cent reduction in emergency room wait times, which would cost $205 million a year for the first two years and then $215 million a year, would happen within an NDP government’s first term, the party says. The NDP would also eliminate LHINs. Critics fear adding staff to emergency rooms would exacerbate problems with Ontario’s health system which ranks among the worst in the world for unecessary — and costly — visits to ER.
Provincial pension plan
Liberals
They’ve led the way on this, promising an “Ontario Retirement Pension Plan” to complement the Canada Pension Plan; Kathleen Wynne says a richer CPP would be better but without that, Ontario has to go it alone. The premise is that only a third of Ontarians have workplace pension plans and the rest aren’t saving enough for retirement — which will be a problem for Ontario’s economy and social programs when they leave the workforce without enough money. Many details are yet to be determined for a program that wouldn’t begin till 2017, but the rough plan is to collect 3.8 per cent of the pay of workers without pension plans (half from the worker, half from the employer) and pay out benefits to people who have paid in (not to current retirees). Benefits would be less than CPP at the bottom end, slightly more than CPP at the top end. The Liberals say there’d be short-term pain for a major long-term gain, citing a report from former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge.
PCs
The Tories deride the Liberal plan as a tax on jobs that would be bad for the economy and they want no part of it. They have said in the past they’d adopt a separate Liberal proposal that would let workers pool their savings into pension plans funded entirely by their own contributions.
New Democrats
Although the NDP has been pushing for expanded public pensions for years, the party left the Liberals’ rough plan out of its platform, arguing that it’s best to wait a couple of years and see whether the federal government — possibly with a new party in power after an election due in 2015 — changes its mind about expanding the Canada Pension Plan instead.
Social services
Liberals
The Liberals lean heavily on their Poverty Reduction Strategy, which the government says has lifted more than 47,000 Ontario children and their families out of poverty since it was introduced in 2009. The Liberals promise to launch a second five-year plan if elected and to increase the Ontario Child Benefit to $1,310 and index that amount to inflation. The party also promises to increase support for children’s treatment centres and developmental services and has pledged $30 million over two years for a disabilities employment strategy. The Liberals say they will partner with businesses to help more people with disabilities reach their employment potential.
PCs
Social spending doesn’t figure prominently in the Tory platform, which instead focuses on reining in government expenditures. The Conservatives do pledge to “move quickly to connect employers to people with disabilities to develop more opportunities and to reduce barriers that exist in the workplace.” The party also plans to expand post-secondary education for people with disabilities. The Conservatives also say they will make mental health care a priority, something they say has contributed to Ontario’s homeless problem and high suicide rates. They promise to “take the fragmented services now offered and replace them with a comprehensive approach to help some of our most vulnerable citizens.”
New Democrats
The NDP are pledging to maintain childcare spaces and link the funding to the rate of inflation. The pledge includes a commitment of $260 million over the next four years. The party is also pledging $720 million over four years for a Caregiver Tax Credit of $1,275 a year for primary caregivers supporting ill or elderly family members with basic functions such as feeding or bathing. The party hasn’t earmarked any money for this in 2014-15, but would spend $230 million, $240 million and $250 million annually after that. The NDP is also investing in child nutrition and expand dental benefits to an estimated 100,000 low-income children.
— With files from Joanne Chianello, David Reevely, Elizabeth Payne and Blair Crawford
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Liberals
In their overall long-term plan for creating more jobs, the Liberals include everything but the kitchen sink: full-day kindergarten, the 30-per-cent post-secondary grant and the $130 billion they plan to spend on infrastructure to make it more attractive for companies to locate in Ontario. But the central focus of the Liberal’s job strategy is its 10-year, $2.5-billion “Jobs and Prosperity Fund”, which includes $40 million a year for the agri-food sector. Although the high-profile announcements look good politically, they’re extremely expensive: Wynne agreed to sink $220 million into Cisco in a 10-year deal to create a minimum 1,700 jobs, and $120 million into OpenText for 1,200 jobs. The case for the deals is that these are multinationals that could choose to put high-paying jobs anywhere, and having them here means spinoff benefits and potential future growth that’ll be good for all of us. But in the short-term, it means transferring tax dollars to certain profitable corporations, while actual long-term benefits are extremely difficult to prove.
PCs
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last five weeks, you’ve surely heard of the Million Jobs Plan. The Conservatives put out a plan defining how many jobs would be created by each of the measures a PC government would take over the next eight years. For example, the Tories contend that cutting the corporate tax rate by 30 per cent would create almost 120,000 jobs, while reducing gridlock in the Toronto area would create 96,000. The baseline growth — also known as doing nothing — would create 523,200 jobs, according the PC platform. All in all, the Conservatives list a total of 11 measures that they say would create one million jobs. But there’s a but: it turns out that the PCs misread their own studies, making an elementary math error and counted the jobs that could be created many times over. Most economists agree the “million” jobs estimate is way off. And in addition to creating jobs, the Tories would cut 100,000 public service positions. It’s unclear where they would all come from, but they’ve committed to doing away with the Ontario Power Authority and say many, if not most, of the cuts will come from attrition.
New Democrats
Like the PCs, the New Democrats would scrap the “corporate welfare” jobs grants, and instead impose a “strings-attached” tax credit for employers to help hire new employees. The “Job Creation Tax Credit,” worth $250 million a year, would fund up to $5,000 of a new employee’s salary. The NDP claims this credit would help create up to 170,000 jobs, while critics of the plan argue that it would simply subsidize the salaries of folks who employers were going to hire anyway. The New Democrats would also cut the small business tax from 4.5 to three per cent by 2016, which would put $290 million into the pockets of small business owners, who would presumably use that money to hire people. They’re also proposing an investment tax credit for Ontario companies that invest in buildings, machinery, and equipment, as well as topping up a federal-provincial program that helps retrain unemployed older workers.
Tax plans
Liberals
In order to help pay for the $3 billion in transit infrastructure the Liberals are planning to spend in each of the next 10 years, they’re promising to raise a number of taxes that they say will bring in $1.3 billion by 2016. These include a one point increase in the personal-income tax rate for those making more than $150,000 per year, a tobacco tax increase of 1.6 cents per cigarette, and a tax on aviation fuel. The Liberals are also proposing to phase out the small business deduction for Canadian companies with more than $10 million in taxable capital. The measure would raise $40 to $50 million in revenue per year over the next three years.
PCs
Lowering the corporate tax rate to 10 per cent immediately, and to 8.5 per cent after the budget is balanced in 2016 is at the centre of the PC tax plan. Instead of helping only a few companies with grants the way the Liberals do, argue the Conservatives, they’d give all companies a break by lowering the general tax rate. That would take about $600 million out of the province’s coffers this year, and $1 billion by 2017, according to the PC platform. Critics point out that Ontario already has a relatively low corporate tax rate in North American terms, while others argue that companies don’t necessarily use tax savings to create more jobs. However, the PCs are also promising to lower personal income taxes by an average of 10 per cent starting in 2018.
New Democrats
Raising the general corporate income tax rate by one point to 12.5 per cent is one way the New Democrats would fund their transit infrastructure plans. The tax increase would raise an addition $680 million in the first year, and $760 million in the fourth. In addition, they’d stop the planned phase-out of the input tax credit restrictions. The Liberal government put a temporary hold on certain tax credits large companies could claim back in 2009, when the HST was introduced. The restriction was to be lifted starting next year, but the New Democrats would prevent that, adding $150 million to the provincial coffers in 2015, and up to $600 million by 2017. On the other hand, they’d cut the small business tax rate from 4.5 to three per cent over the next three years.
Transit/Transportation
Liberals
With congestion in the Greater Toronto Area reaching quasi-crisis levels, all parties are now vowing to throw money at the problem. The Liberals have the most fleshed-out plan, promising to spend $29 billion over the next decade. About $15 billion would be directed at the GTA and Hamilton, while $14 billion would be doled out to the rest of the province. A lot of the specifics are aimed at the Toronto area, such as electrifying the GO train system so it would run more frequently. The Liberals have specifically mentioned funding Ottawa’s second-phase of light rail expansion. Having backtracked from a plan to implement new revenue “tools” to raise the, the Liberals are now looking to fund transit expansion through a series of minor tax hikes. As well, they’re counting on federal government contributions and are willing to raise as much as $7 billion in new debt. Also of note, the Liberals are promising to spend $1 billion on transportation infrastructure to develop the mineral deposit sites in the Ring of Fire area, even if the federal government doesn’t match the funds.
PCs
With possibly the most GTA-centric plan, the PCs say they’ll spend $2 billion a year on transportation infrastructure but not until the budget is balanced, which they say will be by 2016 (a year earlier than the Liberals and New Democrats say they’ll eliminate the deficit). Hudak would scrap light-rail expansion plans on either end of Toronto, as well as cancel LRT projects for Mississauga, Brampton and Hamilton, but is committing to more subways, particularly an east-west relief line in downtown Toronto. Just this week, Hudak said his government would not fund the second phase of Ottawa’s light-rail plan. On the roads front, Hudak would upload the responsibility for Hwy. 174 in Eastern Ontario, as well as expand highways 400, 410 and 403.
New Democrats
Similar to the Liberal plans, the NDP will dedicate $29 billion over the next decade for transit and transportation projects across the province. While the official platform mention only Toronto-area projects such increased GO train service to Kitchener-Waterloo, St. Catharines and Niagara Falls, leader Andrea Horwath has in the past been supportive of Ottawa’s LRT expansion plans. They’d reinstate a program to help municipalities replace transit buses, at a cost of $60 million, as well as restore passenger service on Ontario Northland Rail for $20 million annually. The New Democrats are also upping the highway ante, promising to spend an additional $250 million to widen 60 kilometres of highways each year, at least half of which would be in northern Ontario.
Energy
Liberals
The Liberals have a long-term plan based on conservation, continuing contracts with wind- and solar-energy companies, and refurbishing a handful of nuclear reactors to extend their lives by decades. The party admits the obvious: that electricity bills have risen over the last 10 years, and that they’ll continue to increase for several years to come. But the Liberals say that’s making up for decades of starving Ontario’s electricity system, to the point where we had daily warnings of brownouts in summer and a multibillion-dollar debt on the books from Ontario Hydro. They’ve also all but shut down coal generating plants in Ontario, slashing pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions. They say they’d end the special debt-retirement charge on residential hydro bills by 2016, at the same time as their arbitrary “clean-energy benefit” rebate ends. They’d also merge two of Ontario Hydro’s successor agencies, the Ontario Power Authority and the Independent Electricity System Operator.
PCs
The Tories will end new contracts with wind and solar companies, pulling back hard on the Liberals’ signature Green Energy Act. If more electricity is needed, the Tories say they’d seek to sign deals to buy it from Quebec and Manitoba — taking advantage of their hydro resources, though neither province would have loads of surplus power without building new dams — and to build new nuclear reactors. Inexpensive electricity has been a major industrial advantage for Ontario, the Tories say, and the Liberals have squandered it by letting prices rise. The PCs say they’d abolish the Ontario Power Authority outright (though somebody would have to take on the long-term planning it does for the electricity supply) and would attack the salaries of workers in the energy system, many of whom are paid more than $100,000 a year.
New Democrats
The biggest single problem the NDP see in electricity is the price paid by individual consumers, so the party would try to take sales tax off energy bills (this would require federal co-operation). The NDP would take the four agencies that rose from the ashes of Ontario Hydro and merge them again, plus cap the salaries of the executives who run the system. They’d create a fund to make interest-free loans to homeowners who want to install solar panels and make energy-efficient retrofits. Beyond electricity, the NDP say they’d regulate the price of natural gas more tightly to prevent price spikes. A regulator already approves price changes four times a year but the party says they’d add fairness to consumers to the factors that would have to be considered.
Education
Liberals
The Liberals are mainly running on their record, which includes introducing full-day kindergarten over the last five years, increasing scores on standardized tests, and a 30-per-cent tuition rebate program for low- and middle-income students in post-secondary schools. They’d spend $50 million a year for three years on new classroom technology, encourage more school-based fitness programs, fund math tutoring, and expand a school-breakfast program to supply meals to 56,000 more kids. Also, the Liberals promise a $2-an-hour pay hike for early childhood educators in licensed daycares (costing $269 million a year after two years), whose wages lag those of similarly qualified people who’ve gone to work for school boards in full-day kindergarten classrooms.
PCs
After railing against full-day kindergarten for years, the Tories say they’ve accepted that it’s here to stay — the last batch of schools to join the program roll it out this fall and have already hired people and made plans. But the Tories would change the model, from having a teacher and an early childhood educator lead larger classes to having one adult at a time leading smaller classes, a tweak they say could save $200 million a year. Also, although the promise hasn’t been discussed in detail in the campaign, the Tories say they’d refocus the curriculum on basic skills. They’d have times-tables drills replace the “discovery” process in math classes in junior grades, for instance. They’d cancel the 30-per-cent tuition grant for postsecondary students from low- and middle-income families as a luxury we can’t afford.
New Democrats
Education isn’t a major feature of the NDP platform, but the party says it would make sure physical education is properly funded so kids get more exercise in their school days. The party promises an “open schools” program aimed at keeping schools in neighbourhoods where they might otherwise close, in recognition of their value as community centres and the importance of having schools close to where people live. The NDP would revise the Liberals’ school-nutrition plans to add a few million more dollars per year and emphasize buying local food and teaching basic cooking skills.
Health
Liberals
The Liberals say they will continue work in the some of the health reforms they have begun. Their campaign pledges include a guarantee that every Ontario resident has access to a primary care provider. They will also increase funding for the province’s mental health and addictions strategy by $220 million over three years, including more supportive housing and expand a program aimed at getting the heaviest users of the health system more support and better care to reduce their hospital visits. The so-called Health Links program provides a personal care co-ordinator for each patient. The party also pledges to expand access to children’s dental benefits for low-income families in its first year and extend health benefits to all low-income Ontarians over a decade. Among other health related promises, the Liberals say they will invest $750 million in home and community care and develop an end-of-life strategy.
PCs
The Tories released a comprehensive white paper on health care prior to the election that spells out their plan to close the province’s 14 Local Health Integration Networks (which in 2011 had a total budget of $68 million) as well as community care access centres, which co-ordinate home care, and to replace them with health hubs. The Tories say the move would result in the shedding of 2,000 health bureaucrats and a savings of $800 million. That money, they say, would be reinvested in front-line services. The PCs also propose giving patients choice about whether to accept government-funded home-care services or to buy their own privately with an equivalent amount of money. Critics fear the health hubs would lead to major hospital mergers. The PC also say Ontario needs better mental health and addictions policies and that it needs to make better use of data on best practices, especially when it comes to treating chronic illnesses. The PCs also say they will make it mandatory for school children to have 45 minutes of physical activity a day.
New Democrats
The NDP promise to cut emergency room wait times in half by hiring 250 nurse practitioners and boosting staff in emergency rooms. They also says they will create 1,400 more long-term care beds and establish a five-day home care guarantee, as well as opening new 24-hour family health clinics.The 50 per cent reduction in emergency room wait times, which would cost $205 million a year for the first two years and then $215 million a year, would happen within an NDP government’s first term, the party says. The NDP would also eliminate LHINs. Critics fear adding staff to emergency rooms would exacerbate problems with Ontario’s health system which ranks among the worst in the world for unecessary — and costly — visits to ER.
Provincial pension plan
Liberals
They’ve led the way on this, promising an “Ontario Retirement Pension Plan” to complement the Canada Pension Plan; Kathleen Wynne says a richer CPP would be better but without that, Ontario has to go it alone. The premise is that only a third of Ontarians have workplace pension plans and the rest aren’t saving enough for retirement — which will be a problem for Ontario’s economy and social programs when they leave the workforce without enough money. Many details are yet to be determined for a program that wouldn’t begin till 2017, but the rough plan is to collect 3.8 per cent of the pay of workers without pension plans (half from the worker, half from the employer) and pay out benefits to people who have paid in (not to current retirees). Benefits would be less than CPP at the bottom end, slightly more than CPP at the top end. The Liberals say there’d be short-term pain for a major long-term gain, citing a report from former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge.
PCs
The Tories deride the Liberal plan as a tax on jobs that would be bad for the economy and they want no part of it. They have said in the past they’d adopt a separate Liberal proposal that would let workers pool their savings into pension plans funded entirely by their own contributions.
New Democrats
Although the NDP has been pushing for expanded public pensions for years, the party left the Liberals’ rough plan out of its platform, arguing that it’s best to wait a couple of years and see whether the federal government — possibly with a new party in power after an election due in 2015 — changes its mind about expanding the Canada Pension Plan instead.
Social services
Liberals
The Liberals lean heavily on their Poverty Reduction Strategy, which the government says has lifted more than 47,000 Ontario children and their families out of poverty since it was introduced in 2009. The Liberals promise to launch a second five-year plan if elected and to increase the Ontario Child Benefit to $1,310 and index that amount to inflation. The party also promises to increase support for children’s treatment centres and developmental services and has pledged $30 million over two years for a disabilities employment strategy. The Liberals say they will partner with businesses to help more people with disabilities reach their employment potential.
PCs
Social spending doesn’t figure prominently in the Tory platform, which instead focuses on reining in government expenditures. The Conservatives do pledge to “move quickly to connect employers to people with disabilities to develop more opportunities and to reduce barriers that exist in the workplace.” The party also plans to expand post-secondary education for people with disabilities. The Conservatives also say they will make mental health care a priority, something they say has contributed to Ontario’s homeless problem and high suicide rates. They promise to “take the fragmented services now offered and replace them with a comprehensive approach to help some of our most vulnerable citizens.”
New Democrats
The NDP are pledging to maintain childcare spaces and link the funding to the rate of inflation. The pledge includes a commitment of $260 million over the next four years. The party is also pledging $720 million over four years for a Caregiver Tax Credit of $1,275 a year for primary caregivers supporting ill or elderly family members with basic functions such as feeding or bathing. The party hasn’t earmarked any money for this in 2014-15, but would spend $230 million, $240 million and $250 million annually after that. The NDP is also investing in child nutrition and expand dental benefits to an estimated 100,000 low-income children.
— With files from Joanne Chianello, David Reevely, Elizabeth Payne and Blair Crawford
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