Stop the games, premier tells NDP
Mcguinty criticizes piecemeal approach to revising budget
Ontario’s minority government needs “substantive” proposals from the NDP for supporting the budget, not ideas in dribs and drabs like their high-income surtax, Premier Dalton Mcguinty said Wednesday.
“I’m not prepared to consider a series of one-offs,” he told New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath, saying it’s impossible for his administration to measure their feasibility that way. “We are very concerned about any new costs.” Horwath said she’s releasing her proposals piecemeal — the next one is expected Thursday morning — so the public has time to think about them. “Those who make a lot more can pay a little more,” she said of her plan, which would increase the surtax on portions of income above $500,000 by two percentage points. This would cost someone earning $600,000 an extra $3,120. The government said the NDP expectation that the tax would raise $570 million is based on a faulty calculation, and that the actual number is $440 million Mcguinty needs NDP support for his budget after the Progressive Conservatives said they would vote against it, raising the possibility of a non-confidence vote by April 25 and a late May election. Finance Minister Dwight Duncan warned any new taxes and revenues would not help Ontario plead its case with debt-rating agencies that the province is capable of getting its fiscal house in order. Both the NDP and Tories say the budget doesn’t do enough to create jobs. Tory finance critic Peter Shurman noted 600,000 people in the province remain out of work after the economy slowed last year.
New figures released Wednesday by the Finance Ministry show economic growth in Ontario fell to 1.8 per cent in 2011, down from 3 per cent the previous year.
This was largely due to the Japanese tsunami that slowed auto production and other manufacturing with parts shortages, Duncan said.
That annual growth rate was lower than Canada as a whole at 2.5 per cent but slightly higher than the United States at 1.7 per cent.
Despite the slowdown, corporate profits grew 13.8 per cent, slower than 19.1 per cent in 2010.