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The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


This content is restricted to subscribers

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


Ontarians are looking for a government that is responsible with taxpayers’ money and leaves more in their wallets. And a lot of the promises that got Premier Doug Ford elected still haven’t materialized.

Enter Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie.

Crombie just won the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party. She’s been talking a good game about responsibly managing Ontario’s finances. And it appears she recognizes where the Ontario Liberals have gone wrong in the past.

“I think some of the decisions were too costly for Ontarians,” Crombie said in an interview last May. Crombie questioned the Wynne government’s spending choices in areas ranging from health care to child care.

During the Ontario Liberal leadership campaign, Crombie campaigned on policies to attract voters who were disillusioned with the reckless spending last time the Ontario Liberals controlled Queen’s Park.

Crombie also has a decent record as mayor of Mississauga. During her time in office, she’s largely kept property tax increases in check. Next year’s local property tax hike is set to come in under the rate of inflation and will be among the lowest increases in the GTA.

Ford rode a wave of taxpayer discontent straight to the premier’s office. He promised to get the province’s reckless spending under control and lower the tax burden on hardworking Ontarians.

But so far, Ford has failed on both fronts.

Crombie now has an opportunity to win over Ontarians frustrated with the tax-and-spend policies championed by both previous Liberal governments and the Ford Progressive Conservatives.

Here are three things Crombie could do to position herself as the taxpayer fighter Ford once promised to be: commit to balancing the budget, lower the tax burden for hardworking Ontarians and take the provincial debt seriously.

Ford promised Ontarians just months ago that he would balance the books next year. Instead, the government’s fall economic update announced a $5-billion deficit.

Crombie should lay out a vision to immediately balance the budget. There’s a lot of wasteful spending Crombie could go after, ranging from corporate welfare, to the new Ontario Infrastructure Bank, to taxpayer payouts to political parties.

Then there’s taxes. Ford promised a middle-class tax cut in 2018, but he hasn’t delivered. Ford promised to cut the second income tax bracket by 20 per cent, saving Ontario taxpayers up to $786 a year. Taxpayers are still waiting for those savings.

Crombie should promise a tax cut of her own to win the support of millions of Ontarians who are barely making ends meet. Income taxes are too high. The government’s gas tax cut is only temporary. And high sales taxes only make inflation worse. Crombie could pledge to lower any one of those taxes and find positive reception in every part of the province.

Crombie also needs to present a plan to lower the debt.

Ontario now has $400 billion in debt, largely thanks to the province’s last two Liberal premiers, Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne. The debt spiral they initiated is a major reason why the Liberals have remained a fringe party since 2018.

To stare down the ghosts of the Liberal Party’s past, Crombie should lay out a plan to use future surpluses to get the debt down and add a line item to the provincial budget that goes toward debt repayment. If Ford won’t be fiscally responsible, Crombie should promise to fill the vacuum.

Affordability is the number one priority for taxpayers. And the Ontario government is simply unaffordable. It spends too much and that means tax bills are too high. Crombie needs to make the case that she cares about making life more affordable for taxpayers.

Jay Goldberg is the Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation 

 

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


Every year, I’ve taken to these virtual pages to offer my take on the year that was — via a “hot or not” column — and offer my foolproof, very accurate predictions for the year ahead.

Last year, I was uncharacteristically wrong when I said there wouldn’t be an election in 2021 — although I did have the caveat that there certainly wouldn’t be one in the spring, as was then speculated, but the autumn might be more 50/50. Turns out there was an election in September. And it returned virtually the same result as 2019.

What do I think will happen in 2021?

Well, first and foremost, I am holding out hope that the omnicron variant will mark the end of the pandemic. I’m obviously not a doctor or epidemiologist, but I hope that a variant that is more transmissible but hopefully less virulent is how the virus punches itself out.

The federal government seems to be a stable minority. They need to take the cost of living rise more seriously, but they also cannot mistake the inflationary pressure as being the result of government spending, when it is caused by pandemic demand and supply chain disruption. Now is not the time to pull back on plans to invest in infrastructure and climate resiliency, as well as needed social infrastructure like child care.

The big political flashpoint will be the Ontario provincial election. Gun to my head today, I expect Doug Ford to win. His opposition is divided, lacking a message other than “not Ford” and, despite his flaws, the Premier has a certain je ne sais quoi appeal to many voters. He’s running on fixing traffic and building housing, messages that will appeal to the suburbs as the NDP fights to hold off the Liberals in Toronto. I’ve said before, but the best assets Ford has are a divided opposition, with two opponents who seem unable to… excite the public, to put it diplomatically.

The municipal elections will see continuity for the most part with a dash of change. I expect both Toronto Mayor John Tory and my friend Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie to run for re-election and win handily, again. Both have done good jobs, and a third term would cement their legacies. That leaves the open mayoral seat in Ottawa as the one to watch. I expect a dark horse candidate from the business community or even another level of government to emerge, denying the mayoralty to the councillors and ex-mayor already jockeying to succeed Jim Watson.

In Ottawa, look for Mark Miller and Anita Anand to quietly be the “get stuff done” cabinet ministers who move the ball down the field on two tricky files, Indigenous reconciliation and national defence. Both are competent, unflashy ministers who put in the elbow grease and build relationships with their sectors.

In terms of zeitgeist, I perceive a pent-up demand to get results on infrastructure — particularly housing, transit and those critical community amenities like trails, parks, community centres, urban renewal. COVID-19 has kept us close to home, and we’ve seen the flaws in our neighbourhoods, even as we have grown used to not having to commute every day. Put those things together, and there is a real desire to fix perennial infrastructure problems. Plus, there’s been a migration of young people from the city to the suburbs and exurbs, and that comes with a new demand for quality service in our medium-sized towns.

Recovery and progress: if there are two thematic desires I have for the New Year, those are them.

Happy New Year to you and yours.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.