There is nothing in the budget for the hard working families

By Howie Hampton
MPP Ken-RR

When I buy milk at the grocery store, the first thing I do is look for an expiry date. The last thing I want to find out when I open a carton and pour a glass is that the milk is sour and unfit to drink.
 Today’s hard-working families should use the same cautious approach when consuming Dalton McGuinty’s latest budget. If they do, they will prevent the painful experience of swallowing a bunch of promises that have a best before date of October 11th – the day after the next provincial election.
 The Ontario budget unveiled on March 22nd is Dalton McGuinty’s Don’t Believe it Budget.  It’s a litany of empty gestures and pre-election promises from a chronic promise breaker. After four years of Mr. McGuinty’s broken promises, everyday families know they have to take this latest list of promises with a huge grain of salt.
 Even as they stand, Mr. McGuinty’s promises fail working families. Just before last Christmas Mr. McGuinty gave himself a $40,000 raise virtually overnight. Now he tells the 1.2 million Ontarians who get paid $10 or less: “You have to wait three years for some action.” And he tells Ontario’s poorest children: “You have to wait five years for action.” And he tells the majority of today’s hard-working families: “There’s nothing in this for you at all.” And that’s a shame. 
 Here’s what working families needed to see in last weeks budget:
 Working families deserved a $10 minimum wage today, not a post-dated promise to raise it in 2010. Mr. McGuinty’s approach will just entrench poverty. Families working for minimum wage will continue living in poverty as inflation grows.
 Working families deserved real action to stop the clawback and tackle child poverty, not a promise that something may happen in five years – two elections from now. This means more and continued hardship for low- and modest-income families. Surely, Ontario can do better.
Working families deserved real investments in family priorities like long-term care, childcare, affordable housing, affordable quality education, transit and the environment. What did they see instead?  Only one in four federal childcare dollars actually going to childcare. Only one in three federal affordable housing dollars actually going to housing. Parents and students looking at more punishing tuition fee hikes despite this government receiving hundreds of millions of federal post-secondary education dollars. And the Nanticoke coal plant – one of Canada’s biggest polluters - is still pumping out smog and greenhouse gases.
 In addition, working families deserved to see some real action to sustain Ontario’s vanishing manufacturing and forestry jobs, Over 100,000 jobs have been lost since Dalton McGuinty came to office. For decades Ontario’s manufacturing and forestry sector has provided good jobs, benefits and a pension so people can retire. Today that’s at risk and Ontario needs a plan to protect jobs.
We saw none of that. All we saw was this: An election budget full of election promises and little handouts that are all about politics and trying to buy votes, not about fairness for working families.
The harsh reality for today’s families is this: When you wake up tomorrow, and get your kids ready for school, pack up the minivan and go to work, not much is going to change. There is nothing in the budget that will make your life any better. Nothing to make it more affordable. Nothing to make it any fairer. And that’s a shame.
This is a classic pre-election budget. It has lots of McGuinty promises. But we all know what happened the last time the Liberals made hundreds of promises. And this time the promises aren’t even that good.