How Toronto’s archbishop got his way in Ontario budget
What revelations await us in this Thursday’s budget? And why the rush? All those consultations were for naught.

thestar.com
Feb. 21, 2016
By Martin Regg Cohn

Ontario’s pre-budget consultations have gone from polite fiction to political farce. We will all be the poorer for it.

Every year, petitioners importune the government to do the right thing. Or the left thing.

Even if it amounts to nothing.

It’s no secret that annual budgets are written well before any words are even uttered at public hearings. That didn’t stop the government from going through the motions of seeking online input this year, with Finance Minister Charles Sousa making a personal video appeal for new ideas.

But this time, with the budget being released far earlier than in previous years, the Liberal government’s pretence of consultation looks like obfuscation.

Instead of a typical April or May unveiling, the budget is coming out this Thursday, Feb. 25. Factor in the reality that it is sent to the printer many days before that, that the entire document must be translated into French, and that key decisions are made well in advance, and it becomes clear the budget was locked up weeks ago - at the precise time the government claimed to be taking the public’s pulse.

“I haven’t completed the budget - I mean, we’re in the process of proceeding to prepare it, certainly,” Sousa prevaricated at a legislative committee earlier this month - barely a fortnight before he announced his work was done.

Did no one think to tell the archbishop of the ruse? Oblivious to the fait accompli, Toronto’s Cardinal Thomas Collins turned up last month for the launch of public hearings in Toronto.

Conducted at a local Anglican church (the spiritual setting was purely coincidental, not ecumenical), it served as a fitting backdrop for Cardinal Collins to appeal for greater social spending, with an encouraging word for the cash-strapped Sousa:

“Be assured of my prayers,” he intoned.

Far from preaching to the converted, however, the archbishop’s homily came incontrovertibly too late: We now know what was still secret a month ago - that the treasurer was, in fact, predestined to meet a February deadline for the government’s ongoing deficit-fighting crusade.

It was all for show. And the show must go on, which is why Cardinal Collins and all other interveners were limited to three-minute presentations.

The rules of the (rigged) game restrict not only timing, but topics. On Sousa’s say-so, tax hikes were also strictly off limits:

“Major changes to the government’s existing mandate, revenue and taxation will not be considered as part of this discussion,” according to his final call for suggestions last month.

Thus does the government invite fresh thinking - with a disclaimer that it won’t discard old policies. Which makes even more of a mockery of the preordained pre-budget consultation.

Rightly or wrongly, Sousa is sticking to a 2017-18 deadline to eliminate the $7.5-billion deficit. The idea is to avoid piling on additional debt to the nearly $300 billion that Ontarians now owe after living beyond our means for decades - not just in bad times but good times.

All that said, and all that money spent, is it fiscally prudent to balance the budget solely through restraint, effectively ruling out revenue growth? Is it intellectually honest to insist that any public presentations be without taxation?

That’s politics. All three parties have taken the same vow of silence.

Raising income taxes is taboo not just for the governing Liberals, but the opposition Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats (as ever, the NDP sticks to the safe option of forever popular corporate tax hikes).

After all those pointless consultations and exhortations, what revelations await us this Thursday - and why the rush? For all its coyness and craftiness, the government’s timetable is dictated in part by an ambitious agenda on social and economic policy:

• The budget will specify plans to join Quebec and California in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Queen’s Park must meet a looming deadline to spell out how it will participate in auctions for carbon credits under a cap and trade system.
• After years of dithering by the other provinces on CPP reform, the government will reconfirm it has secured federal co-operation to roll out its new Ontario Retirement Pension Plan, with premiums now set to be collected on Jan. 1, 2018 for most firms, and the plan fully phased in by 2020 as scheduled.
• Wine sales are being liberalized, with the first of 150 new supermarket locations rolled out later this year. There will be details on how these changes affect the LCBO’s monopoly, markups, and overall government revenues.
• Ontario’s infrastructure spending will be highlighted again, ahead of new investments from Ottawa promised for the federal budget coming in the months ahead.

Aside from the fine print, expect a “no surprises” budget, as telegraphed by the Liberals in their original call for suggestions.

As for all those people who responded by calling for an end to separate school boards - among the most popular online submissions - it’s not going to happen: None of the three parties in the legislature has any appetite for alienating the Catholic vote.

Doubtless the archbishop will be disappointed that his economic oration in an Anglican church was for naught. But on budget day, at least one of his prayers will be answered, with the separate school system still separate.