Charles Sousa keen to see how budget pledges for daycare, housing play out
Ontario finance minister says he needs more details before knowing the impact of federal funding promises.

TheStar.com
March 22, 2017
Rob Ferguson

Ontario is taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the federal budget, with Finance Minister Charles Sousa saying he needs more details before knowing how it will impact daycare, affordable housing and tax revenues.

“I look forward to seeing how that will be,” he told reporters of Ottawa’s plan to crack down on ride-sharing services like Uber, forcing them to charge passengers the GST.

That measure will help “level the playing field” with taxis and help boost the provincial treasury, said Sousa, who noted new measures in the last few years have helped the province reap an additional $1 billion from the underground economy.

It remains to be seen how $11 billion earmarked for affordable housing and for $7 billion for child care will help Ontario’s efforts on those files in the coming years, added Sousa.

He applauded federal efforts to improve training of unemployed workers but suggested his government could have used more federal help on a number of fronts because Ottawa has deeper pockets.

“They have a lot more fiscal room than the province,” said Sousa, whose Liberal government is seeking re-election next year.

He pledged to bring down Ontario’s budget “soon.” It is expected within two or three weeks.

Progressive Conservative finance critic Vic Fedeli said Sousa was clearly “disappointed” in the budget from his Liberal cousins in the nation’s capital, given the “sombre tones” in his reaction.

“If this was a Conservative budget you would have seen impassioned table-pounding from the minister.”

Fedeli, who represents the North Bay-area riding of Nipissing, said he was alarmed at the lack of federal help for the development of the Ring of Fire, a vast mineral deposit in northwestern Ontario.

New Democrats at Queen’s Park said the federal budget was underwhelming, and blamed Premier Kathleen Wynne for not being able to wrangle more.

“Our province needs stronger funding commitments from the federal government when it comes to affordable housing, infrastructure and transit, more affordable pharmacare, and equitable access to drinking water and education for First Nations communities,” NDP finance critic John Vanthof said in a statement.