Ontario's 2017-18 budget highlights

toronto.ctvnews.ca
April 27, 2017
By Sandie Benitah

Here are some of the highlights from Ontario's 2017-18 budget.

What’s new

• Free prescription drugs for Ontarians under 24
• New taxing powers for municipalities
• 24,000 daycare spaces this fiscal year
• Price of cigarettes continues to rise
• New GO train routes to Grimsby, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls

Health care

Introducing OHIP+ Children and Youth Pharmacare

• Free prescription drugs for Ontarians under 24, regardless of income
• Starts January 1, 2018
• Covers 4400 medicines included in the ODB program (Ontario Drug Benefit)
• Includes inhalers, antibiotics and birth control
• Includes medication for acute and chronic conditions
• Will cost province $465M per year
• This will affect 4 million Ontarians

$7B new healthcare spending

• Public funding for new abortion pill
• Reducing wait times
• $32M stem cell transplants for cancer patients (helping up to 150 Ontarians suffering from blood cancer)
• Expanding mental health, addiction services
• Funds for hospital construction, operations

New taxing powers for cities

• Ontario will amend legislation to boost taxing powers
• Toronto will have ability to implement hotel tax
• Toronto will have ability to tax vacant property owners

Childcare

• 24,000 new daycare spaces this fiscal year
• Part of 100,000 new spaces that will be created over next five years
• 60 per cent of the new spaces will be subsidized
• 3,100 subsidized spaces in Toronto

Balanced budget

• First balanced budget since 2008/2009
• No surplus
• Budget projected to remain balanced until 2020
• Ontario’s net debt is $312B
• Debt to GDP ratio expected to continue trending downward

New cigarette tax

• Cartons will cost $10 more in next three years
• As of midnight, cartons will cost $2 more
• An additional $4 in 2018, $4 in 2019
• Last year, Ontario raised price of carton by $3

Housing

• Gives Toronto taxing powers on vacant homes
• Ontario’s Fair Housing Plan
• 15 per cent tax on foreign investors
• Land transfer tax refund doubled to $4K for first-time homebuyers
• Rent control for all privately owned buildings after 1991
• $125M over 5 years to encourage development of rental buildings

Affordable Housing in Toronto

• $130M for retrofitting affordable housing in Toronto
• Provincial land to be used for social housing
• Minimum 20 per cent of land will be used for social housing
• Grosvenor/Grenville and West Donlands sites to be used for 2,000 new housing units in Toronto

New GO Train routes

• Weekday GO train to Grimsby by 2021
• Weekday GO train to Grimsby, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls by 2023