The Ontario provincial government just released their new budget for 2017-2018.
This is the provincial Liberals’ first balanced budget since the global recession in 2008.
There’s almost nothing specifically announced for Brampton (yet), but it is full of surprises and improvements that should help many people.
We’ve pulled out some interesting and relevant items from the budget.
OHIP+ is arguably the biggest announcement to come out of this budget. Free, universal prescription drug coverage for children and young adults under the age of 25. The program will cost $465 million and will cover over 4,400 medicines, including expensive ones used for treatments for cancer.
Mayor Linda Jeffrey has remarked on how good this program will be for the city.
“Brampton has the youngest population of the 10 largest cities in the country, with many young families calling our city home. OHIP+ Children and Youth Pharmacare…will truly help the residents of my City.”
This is in addition to another $1.3 billion in health care to decrease waiting times for medical procedures. It also includes a minimum 2 per cent funding boost to the operating costs of hospitals, which should help alleviate some of the wait times at Brampton Civic Hospital. There is also big boosts for home and community care and quite a bit of money for mental health coming down the pipeline.
Unfortunately, there isn’t specifically any money earmarked for the expansion of the new Peel Memorial for overnight beds, or for a third hospital in Brampton. The only mention the city gets is the funding for 32 mental health beds for female inmates at the Roy McMurtry Youth Centre by 2018.
However, between many of the health care initiatives, it’s possible that many patients who currently have no choice but to go to the hospital for treatment may be able to be diverted or preventively treated.
Other youth-oriented measures include the streamlining of OSAP that will allow up to 210,000 students to attend college and university effectively for free. This isn’t new money, but a reorganization of existing grants and loans to be able to effective give money to those who need it.
There’s a new $68 million Career Ready fund which will help create co-op and paid learning opportunities for post-secondary students and graduates. The new minimum salary threshold one has to start paying off their OSAP loans is rising from $25,000 to $35,000.
Unlike previous budgets, which has given pre-emptive transit and transportation announcements, this one has earmarked $56 billion for transit and $26 billion for highways over the next decade, but no specifics have been given.
GO’s expansion and state of good repair construction is likely to eat $21 billion of this. There are still four and a half projects from the existing wave of Metrolinx projects that haven’t been funded, including rapid transit for Brampton’s Queen Street corridor.
$35 billion is left to fund Toronto’s Downtown Relief and Yonge North subway lines, Mississauga-Halton’s proposed Dundas Bus Rapid Transit Line, the Scarborough half of Durham-Scarborough BRT, and Brampton’s Queen Street rapid transit line.
There are also other projects that may want a piece of that pie, including expansion of LRT in Cambridge and Ottawa, and BRT projects in London and the GTHA.
There is also the spectre of the Southwestern Ontario high-speed rail line from Toronto to Windsor. The province is moving forward with the environmental assessment, but we won’t know until May whether or not Brampton will have a station on the line.
Jeffrey is optimistic about this budget, saying it “helps Brampton to continue to strengthen our high growth public transit, health care, and infrastructure needs.”
The Brampton Board of Trade, however, has expressed concern “that there is no clear path for long-term fiscal prudence. While there is no deficit over the planning period, there is also no plan for surplus.”
