Ontario finance minister welcomes federal budget: ‘We have common priorities’

Charles Sousa seems hopeful despite the billions less on public transit and other infrastructure than Justin Trudeau pledged during the federal election campaign.

Thestar.com
March 23, 2016
By Rob Ferguson

Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa says he “welcomes” the federal budget despite billions less than Justin Trudeau promised for public transit and other infrastructure.

“We share very much the same values and we have common priorities,” Sousa said Tuesday after his federal counterpart Bill Morneau announced an additional $6.6 billion for infrastructure programs across the country over the next two years.

But that’s one-third shy of the $10 billion pledged during the lengthy federal election campaign, in which Premier Kathleen Wynne enthusiastically stumped for Trudeau as he soared from third in the polls.

Wynne had signalled her government is looking for $1 billion in short-term help as it boosts public transit to ease gridlock.

“We’ll continue to work with the federal government to secure our per capita share of those investments,” Sousa told reporters at Queen’s Park, noting his government has pledged infrastructure efforts worth $160 billion over the next decade, creating 110,000 jobs.

“We have shovel-ready projects ready to go,” added Sousa, who was briefed earlier by ministry staff in the federal budget lock-up in Ottawa. “We’ll have to play out and see what they (the federal government) do.”

Progressive Conservative MPP Vic Fedeli, his party’s finance critic, said the federal budget - which also forecasts a deficit approaching $30 billion this year, three times higher than Trudeau promised - was a case of lockup letdown for Ontario.

“There was nothing special” for the transit-hungry province despite Wynne’s political efforts on the prime minister’s behalf, Fedeli said.

“What we really wanted to see was immediate rollout of money and that doesn’t seem to be as immediate, I think, as the provincial government was hoping for,” he added.

“That’s a concern as well and I’m not entirely convinced that the amount was what the provincial government was looking for.”

Aside from no specifics on transit funding, there was no mention of the province’s long-sought matching $1 billion federal contribution to help develop the rich and vast Ring of Fire mineral deposits in northwestern Ontario. And there wasn’t a federal push for an enhanced Canada Pension Plan that would allow Wynne to back down on a controversial Ontario Retirement Pension Plan.

“I think that’s going to irk the provincial government. They moved the pension ‘tax’ back hoping that the feds will step in,” said Fedeli.

The NDP, which had been eager to see if Wynne’s political links with Trudeau would pay off, said the federal budget should be easing Ontario’s financial strains, which have resulted in layoffs of nurses and the partial sell-off of Hydro One.

“On one hand the premier says Ontario will get more for infrastructure help from Ottawa. On the other hand she insists the only way to pay for infrastructure is to sell off Hydro One,” said New Democrat Deputy Leader Jagmeet Singh.

“If the federal budget comes through like the premier has suggested it will, even Ontario Liberals should realize that selling Hydro One is the wrong decision.”

Sousa chided opposition parties for their notion that the Wynne government should get a political payback from its federal Liberal cousins.

“The payback is what is in it for the future of Canada,” said Sousa, who has previously chided the Conservative federal government for not ponying up on the Ring of Fire or giving Ontario a better deal on equalization payments.

“A strong Canada makes for a strong Ontario.”