The Liberals’ orange budget

As provincial budgets go, Premier Kathleen Wynne’s first — and possibly last — promises the pain of some fiscal restraint wrapped in significant gains, in particular for seniors, welfare recipients, unemployed young people and drivers seeking respite from costly automobile insurance.

None of this is a surprise, given the Liberals’ repeated announcements leading up to the budget, tabled by Finance Minister Charles Sousa on Thursday afternoon. But the 314-page, $127.6-billion budget is not so much a blueprint for government spending as a political document from a minority government that desperately needs the support of NDP Leader Andrea Horwath to survive. Frankly, it embraced so many of the NDP’s ideas that the Liberals could have published it on burnished orange paper.

Given that the Liberal government is spending millions in new funding to meet the NDP’s pre-budget demands, it’s hard to imagine how Horwath could vote against it later this month. And yet Horwath boldly marched to a microphone Thursday to proclaim her party will “consult with Ontarians.” That’s it. As far as political power plays go, this was anti-climactic.

Indeed, the stakes are almost as high for Horwath as they are for Wynne. The popular NDP leader holds the balance of power and, after propping up the McGuinty Liberals’ 2012 budget, risks looking like a politician afraid to lock and load if she does the same with Wynne. As Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said, “If (Horwath) comes into the legislature in the morning and says the government is corrupt, I don’t see how she can come in the afternoon and say we’ll support you.”

It’s a perception problem underlined by Horwath’s arch criticism over Liberal promises to spend even more than asked on NDP proposals. The NDP leader finds herself criticizing the government for promising to spend too much. It’s as if Wynne has so successfully commandeered the left that the NDP can now only criticize from the right. Unfortunately for her, Hudak’s got the austerity platform all tied up.

The fact is the Liberals have crafted a worthy budget in difficult circumstances, in part by appropriating the NDP’s ideas, even if the details on execution are still vague, like the 15-per-cent “target” for auto insurance rate cuts.

Modest hikes to social assistance will help single mothers, the disabled and the lowest paid in the welfare system, single people. They now receive just $606 a month and will get $626, a slightly higher increase than that for other welfare recipients. Another key change will allow people who apply for welfare to hold on to more of their assets, like savings, before qualifying. That’s a good move.

Seniors who need home care won’t complain about the additional $260 million that will go into the sector over the next three years. The NDP asked for a far lower figure of $30 million, which it said could be used to guarantee a five-day maximum wait time. Now Horwath says the Liberal promise — more than eight times higher than her proposal — is too vague and requires additional “consultation” with Ontarians.

The Liberals also say, vaguely, that they support revenue tools to fight gridlock and suggest the use of toll lanes on major highways, a move condemned by Horwath. “Lexus lanes,” she said. That’s an obstructionist attitude, with the Greater Toronto region struggling to find ways to pay for gridlock that costs nearly $6 billion a year.

At the same time, the budget carries a sobering message for Ontario’s near-term economic future; the government has trimmed its projections for growth to1.5 per cent and sees higher deficits ahead before it eventually balances the books. With that in mind Sousa is taking a very cautious approach, limiting spending increases to 1.5 per cent for the big-ticket items like health and education. It’s modest austerity without service destruction.

A balanced budget by 2017-18 is still in the Liberal plan, with savings promised to come from reforms to public service pensions, among other moves.

There’s little in this document that wasn’t expected, and the new initiatives are targeted at Ontarians who need it the most. Horwath would be best advised to throw the government a lifeline and support it after she’s done “consulting.” After all, it’s the first orange-tinged budget in nearly 20 years.

Liberal budget is more of a political document aimed at winning the NDP’s support