Government Relations Report

The Ontario government’s newly released Budget includes a modest increase in its support for Infrastructure investment in Ontario. The year over year commitments grow by about half a Billion from $15,566 to $16,094 million. Transit is awarded the largest allocation of almost $7,514 billion in projected spending.

The ambitious transit plan has clearly rolled out much slower than advertised. It is projected that transit infrastructure expenditure will be $5,100 million for the just ending fiscal year. It left $2,076 budgeted but not spent. Ministry officials commented that this reflects slower roll out of many initiatives but that the delivery dates will not be impacted.

There are smaller shortfalls in other allocation accounting for a $3 billion shortfall.

Other sectors with funding increases include education, colleges, universities, social, and justice. This is the second consecutive Budget that increases spending to the ICI sector of the construction economy.

The government will create an Office of Apprentice Opportunity to build a diverse apprentice system. It will work with employers and unions to improve pathways into the apprentice system. It isn’t known why this wasn’t given to OCOT who has a mandate to promote the trades.

The government used the Budget to express its intention to proceed with Community Benefits on major infrastructure initiatives. They committed to have major public projects comply with a community benefits framework by 2020. In the interim, pilot projects will be operated on a range of projects to support the development of the framework.

This is an election budget which means it is dependent on who forms the government after June 7 to implement the new initiatives. Some new program spending such as the Child Care initiative will not be included until the 2019/20 budget.