Throne speech signals dramatic changes
Tories pledge to end cap and trade, promise tax relief, lower gas prices and hydro bills
Warning “change will not be easy,” Premier Doug Ford’s new Progressive Conservative government is signalling it will move quickly with dramatic reforms.
In Thursday’s speech from the throne — read in the legislature by Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell and titled “A Government for the People” — the new administration will convene a commission of inquiry into govern- ment spending practices.
The Tories will also free police from “onerous restrictions that treat those in uniform as subjects of suspicion and scorn,” end “unaffordable green energy contracts,” and expand beer and wines sales to convenience and big-box stores.
While the speech did not specifically mention the $6 billion in spending cuts that Ford promised during the spring election campaign, it heralded a new era of restraint.
“We cannot afford to dither or delay. To overcome these challenges, we must challenge the status quo, reject the old compromises and embrace change,” the nine-page throne speech said.
“The road ahead will not be easy, but the path is clear.”
On education, the Ford government will replace the 2015 “sex education curriculum with an age-appropriate one that is based on real consultation with parents.”
In a sop to the social conservatives who helped him become Tory leader in March, the new premier’s administration will use the 1998 sex education syllabus, which predates Google, same-sex marriage and social media, until a new lesson plan is developed. Students will no longer be taught the “failed experimental ‘discovery math’ curricula” in favour of a focus on fundamentals. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said “this throne speech takes us backwards, it takes us back to a previous century, and is a race to the bottom of what families should be able to count on their government for.”
Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser said the “impact of the government’s decisions in our schools is of deep concern.”
But evangelist Charles McVety, an invited guest at the speech, said students can now “go and learn how to tie their shoelaces and do arithmetic and read and write and do what they should be doing in school instead of learning things that belong, really, in post-graduate studies.”
Green Leader Mike Schreiner countered that Ford has “declared war on the modern world.
“I mean, to have no climate change plan and to take our sex-ed curriculum back to 1998 is taking the province backwards,” said Schreiner.
In contrast to recent speeches from the throne, there was no French spoken. Nor was there any acknowledgement of Indigenous peoples. Although the income tax cuts Ford promised during the June 7 election will not take effect for at least two years, the speech promised “meaningful, necessary tax relief to parents, small businesses and the working poor.”
The Tories will call “a commission of inquiry into the financial practices of the government to identify ways to restore accountability and trust in Ontario’s public finances.”
The previous Liberal government’s spending practices were a major target of the Ford campaign.
Indicating Ford’s government will embrace Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk’s accounting — which would balloon this year’s deficit to $11.7 billion from the $6.7 billion projected by the Liberals — the speech said “the era of accounting tricks and sleight of hand must end.”
That suggests Finance Minister Vic Fedeli will not book as assets some $11 billion of government money in the cosponsored Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union Pension Plan and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. However, the Tories will charge ahead with expanding the Liberals’ costly Fair Hydro Plan that Lysyk has also criticized as “bogus.”
In the 2016 speech from the throne, Wynne’s government promised to reduce hydro rates by 25 per cent by borrowing billions of dollars to amortize the costs of electricity system improvements over a longer period of time. Ford will build upon the Liberal plan to reduce rates an additional 12 per cent by funnelling to ratepayers the government’s annual dividends from its share of Hydro One, which currently goes toward revenues.
The throne speech touted the end of Ontario’s cap-and-trade alliance with Quebec and California, which means $1.9 billion less flowing to the treasury for environmental programs.
There was no mention of what Ford’s government plans to do to tackle greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. However, the speech reiterated his support for keeping open the Pickering nuclear generating station.
On health care, the Tories have pledged 15,000 new long- term care beds over the next five years and $3.8 billion in mental health and addiction spending, including toward supportive housing.
There was a vague promise of “partnering with Toronto and other GTA municipalities to build a world-class transit system.” With the city experiencing a summer of gun violence, the Ford government, which has already postponed implementation of the Ontario Special Investigations Unit Act on improving police oversight, indicated a possible return to carding.
“You can count on your government to respect the men and women of Ontario’s police services by freeing them from onerous restrictions that treat those in uniform as subjects of suspicion and scorn,” the speech said. “And ensuring they have the tools, support and resources they need to enforce the law and protect innocent families from the menace of drug, gun and gang-related violence
That suggests a resumption of the controversial Toronto AntiViolence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) that ran from 2006 until 2017, which had the highest rate of stopping Black people to check their identification.
Ford ended almost 15 years of Liberal rule in the June 7 election, toppling Wynne, who had been premier since 2013. He hopes to expand upon her liberalization of beer and wine distribution to supermarkets by allowing sales at convenience stores and big box retailers.
But that could be costly because in 2015 Wynne’s government signed a 10-year contract with the Beer Store, which is owned by the major breweries, to allow just 450 supermarkets to sell six-packs.
Under the terms of that deal, there are financial penalties for any “breach” of the agreement.