What the Parties Have Promised Ontario Voters So Far

We’re now almost two weeks into the campaign and just 10 days away from advance polls, which will take place from February 20 to February 22 across Ontario. As you weigh your choices in this election, consider this rundown of what the leaders have promised so far during their daily announcements:

Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives

PC Announcements

• February 3: Tariff Response — Payroll tax relief for small businesses; expansion of the Ontario Made Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit; top-up to the Invest Ontario Fund; prioritize Ontario steel, forestry products and other inputs for provincial infrastructure projects.
• February 4: Ottawa— Upload the Ottawa LRT; upgrade and eventually upload Highway 174; fund the Kanata North Transitway; public safety funding for the Byward Market.
• February 5: Drivers — Take tolls off of Highway 407 East; cut the gas tax by 5.7 cents per litre; ban congestion pricing.
• February 6: Transit — Build a freight rail bypass along the Highway 407 corridor in Peel Region; new GO line in mid-town Toronto; new GO line from Bolton to Union Station via Woodbridge and Etobicoke; extensions and improvements to existing lines, including Richmond Hill.
• February 7: Commuters— Build a tunnel under the 401; build Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass; deliver the Ontario Line and GTA LRTs.
• February 8: Border — Expand the Ontario Provincial Police’s (OPP) Joint-Air Support Unit; invest in efforts to crack down on illegal border crossings; mandatory minimum sentences for drug trafficking; inspect shipping containers for fentanyl.
• February 10: Energy — Developing Ontario’s first integrated energy plan; refurbish existing nuclear energy generation and explore new nuclear energy generation; expand hydroelectricity generation in Niagara and in Northern and Eastern Ontario; secure the largest battery energy storage procurement in Canadian history; build new energy transmission infrastructure across Ontario; ban Chinese components from all future energy procurements.

Bonnie Crombie’s Ontario Liberals

Liberal Announcements:

• January 26: Healthcare — Educate, attract and retain thousands of new family doctors; expand access to family doctors practicing in teams; modernize family medicine and make appointments available on evenings and weekends; stop penalizing patients and doctors if they seek care at walk-in clinics.
• January 31: Transit — Hire 300 special constables for TTC, OC Transpo, Metrolinx, and other major transit service providers; establish a new fund to double investment in Mobile Crisis Intervention Teams;
  provide operational funding for safety equipment like cameras; install platform doors in all TTC subway stations.
• February 3: Tariff Response — Cut the small business tax rate in half; reduce income taxes; establish a Fight Tariffs Fund that provides access to lower-than-market interest rates; direct stimulus funding towards hospitals, schools, roads and transit; exclude American companies from procurement opportunities; eliminate interprovincial trade barriers.
• February 5: Poverty — Permanently double Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) benefits and index it to inflation.
• February 6: Kitchener-Waterloo — Expand the ION LRT system by adding 17 km of rapid transit from Fairway Station in Kitchener to Downtown Cambridge; accelerate the St. Mary’s and Grand River hospital redevelopment; deliver all-day two-way GO Transit between Kitchener and Toronto.

Marit Stiles’ Ontario NDP

NDP Announcements:

• February 3: Tariff Response — Launch a Buy Ontario campaign; Make government-funded agencies procure locally; negotiate a joint federal-provincial income assistance program; create a Premier’s Task Force on the Economy; accelerate infrastructure projects in transit, school repair, and home building; support farmers by removing the cap from the Risk Management Program.
• February 4: Education—Clear the school repair backlog within 10 years; hire more teachers, educational assistants, child and youth workers, ECEs; create a universal School Food Program; end streaming and use data to support more equitable schools; review the funding model to focus on student needs and not numbers of students; invest in Francophone education in French school boards and French immersion programs in the English system; fix student transportation funding.
• February 5: Homelessness and Poverty — Create 60,000 new supportive housing units; build hundreds of thousands of permanently affordable homes; upload shelter funding to the province; work with the federal government to boost the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit; bring forward real protections for renters; double social assistance rates.
• February 6: Renters — Close the 2018 rent control loophole; stop rent increases between tenants; crack down on renovictions, demovictions and other illegal tactics; fix the Landlord and Tenant board; legalize more housing like fourplexes and four-storey multiplex apartments; legalize midrise apartments along transit corridors as-of-right; limit short-term rentals to one’s primary residence; build or acquire at least 300,000 permanently affordable rental homes in non-profit and co-op housing.
• February 7: Healthcare — Recruit and support 3,500 new doctors; expand healthcare in Northern Ontario by hiring 200 family physicians and 150 specialists; establish a Northern Command Centre to manage capacity across the North; cut red tape so doctors spend more time with patients; clear the path for 13,000 internationally trained doctors; increase residency spots province-wide.
• February 8: Food Security — Create a Monthly Grocery Rebate based on household income and family size; stop price gouging by forcing big retailers to publicly post when they raise prices more than 2%/week; crack down on price fixing and establish a watchdog to enforce competition laws and keep food prices fair.
• February 10: Healthcare (Nursing) — Consulting with nurses, legislate safe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios; end the reliance on private, for-profit nursing agencies; hire at least 15,000 nurses over the next three years.
• February 10: Workers — Compensate workers for as long as their work-acquired disability lasts; deliver 85–90% loss of earnings when workers are injured or disabled as a result of their work; expand workers’ health care benefits so they can receive the treatments they need; recognize workplace clusters of disease when patterns exceed the level in the community.

Mike Schreiner’s Green Party

Green Party Announcements:

• January 31: Tariff Response — Create a ‘tariff taskforce’ that works across party, jurisdictional and sectoral lines; create an investment tax credit to unlock business investments in Ontario; develop a “Buy Ontario” strategy and implement public procurement rules that support Ontario businesses; create a Protect Ontario Fund for businesses disproportionately impacted by tariffs; work with other provinces to remove interprovincial trade barriers.
• February 3: Housing — Allow fourplexes and four-storey buildings as of right, sixplexes in cities over 500,000, and midrise buildings of up to 6–11 storeys on transit corridors and main streets; remove development charges on homes, condos and apartment units under 2,000 square feet within urban boundaries; create an Affordable Communities Fund to cover municipalities’ housing infrastructure costs; remove the Land Transfer Tax for first-time homebuyers.
• February 5: Agriculture — Immediately increase funding to expand business risk management programs; develop local procurement guidelines for public sector purchases; establish a fund to increase local processing capacity and investing in local food hubs; create an AgTech Innovation Fund; introduce a provincial program to pay farmers for environmental goods and services; mandate permanent protection of farmland through the development of an Ontario Foodbelt.
• February 6: Poverty — Immediately double Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and Ontario Works (OW) rates and tie all future increases to inflation; eliminate unfair clawbacks, including clawbacks from the Canada Disability Benefit; work with nonprofits to build 310,000 new affordable non profit and co-op homes, including 60,000 supportive homes with wraparound supports.
• February 7: Income Taxes — Cut taxes for people making under $65,000 a year; raise taxes on individuals in the top tax bracket.

Theresa has served as the Communications Coordinator for the Ontario Liberal Party, the Director of Communications to Ontario Deputy Premier Deb Matthews, and an election speechwriter for former Premier Kathleen Wynne. She owns a communications company operating out of Toronto.