Budget gets mixed reviews in Niagara
Opposition MPPS call pre-election budget ‘tone deaf’
While the provincial government’s pre-election budget promises significant direct investments in Niagara, Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce chief executive officer Mishka Balsom said some of the provincewide spending it includes will benefit the region’s businesses as well.
Nevertheless, Balsom said the budget fell short of addressing other issues in the region, while Niagara’s opposition MPPS called it “tone deaf” for failing to deal with the ever-increasing cost of living.
Niagara West PC MPP Sam Oosterhoff said the budget includes funding for a new West Lincoln Memorial Hospital in Grimsby; invests more than $63 million to expand high-speed internet access across southwestern Ontario, including rural Niagara communities; supports increased GO train service between Toronto and Niagara; and pledges to twin the Garden City Skyway in St. Catharines as part of a $25.1-billion investment in Ontario highways over the next decade.
In a media release, Oosterhoff said the provincial government’s plan is working, “but the work is not over, and the job is not done.”
“We are ready to get it done for the people of Niagara,” he said.
Balsom said GNCC member businesses identified areas of concern regarding economic recovery and growth through a series of provincial budget consultations with businesses across the region.
They included “significant inflation concerns, labour shortages, ongoing supply chain interruptions amplified by war, red tape challenges, and the housing crisis,” she said in a statement.
She said several aspects of the budget were encouraging, such as a commitment to “build 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years and their extensive commitment to building highways and public transit.”
Nevertheless, she was alarmed by the growing provincial debt and reliance on expected growth to
We are ready to get (the job) done for the people of Niagara.
SAM OOSTERHOFF NIAGARA WEST PC MPP
counter that deficit.
“Projections of growth have been wrong before, and we cannot base our plans on the bestcase scenario,” she said.
“If the government plans to ease deficit spending by economic growth, we would also want to see a clear outline of where and how that growth is expected to manifest, and how it will directly affect government revenues.”
She said the budget failed to include any promises of further support for tourism and hospitality industries that “will take years to return to their pre-pandemic levels.”
In a joint media release, Niagara’s provincial New Democratic Party representatives — Jennie Stevens from St. Catharines, Wayne Gates from Niagara Falls, Jeff Burch from Niagara Centre and Niagara West candidate Dave Augustyn — said the budget does nothing to address the housing and affordability crisis in Niagara.
Meanwhile, they said planned spending on health care and education falls short of inflation in the next three years and will result “in $2.7-billion in cuts to services people rely on.”
Gates said the budget “is tonedeaf” for failing to address excessive cost of living increases.
“Every day, we hear from seniors’ who are struggling to pay their bills. The price of gas is increasing, the price of food is going up, their rent is going up and their benefits aren’t increasing,” he said. “It’s not just seniors. People can barely afford to drive to work yet their wages aren’t moving. This budget misses the most important thing, making life affordable. Since Ford won’t do anything about it, we will.”
Stevens said Niagara families needed a budget that made building affordable housing a priority and provided assistance for young families trying to buy their first home.
“But it is clear that Doug Ford’s budget will once again only make life easier for his developer buddies, and it does nothing for families. We have a housing crisis in Niagara; people from our own community literally cannot afford to buy a home here. Parents are watching as their kids have no choice but to leave the community they were raised in,” she said.
Burch, whose recent private members motion was supported by the provincial legislature calling for the preservation of full services at Welland hospital’s emergency department, said he was dismayed that the budget “ignores this entirely.”
“Health care across Ontario is broken after years of underfunding and neglect. Coming out of the pandemic it’s clear that now is the time to invest in better care, hire health-care workers and fix the system. Now is the time to invest in health care, not kick it while it’s down,” he said.
Augustyn said an NDP government is needed to work with Ontarians to make “communities more affordable, keep home ownership accessible, improve access to transit and transportation, and rebuild local health care.”