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Oxford's MPP Examines Provincial Budget

Friday, 28 April 2017 at 05:43

Conservative MPP Ernie Hardeman is taking a close look at the Ontario Liberal budget.

The Ontario Liberals have introduced their first balanced budget in a decade.

Conservative MPP Ernie Hardeman tells Heart FM there is a gaping hole in the $141 billion budget. 

"At the end of the budget it does say that the revenues and the expenses balance, but there's an awful chunk of one time revenues that will be ongoing expenses."

Hardeman adds without those revenues the Liberals would be $6 million short.

The budget has a strong emphasis on health care, dedicating $11.5 billion in new health care spending over three years. The money will address overcrowding in hospitals and it will provide funding for hospital construction projects, home care, and mental health and addictions services.

The Liberals have also promised to spend $465 million a year on a pharmacare program for youth. The program will cover the cost of prescription medication for common chronic conditions for youth under the age of 25 with no deductible or co-payment.

Conservative MPP Ernie Hardeman believes the program was designed for all the wrong reasons.

"The challenge is that it covers all youth under 25 regardless of their ability to pay and somebody who can't afford to pay at 26 they're still left with no support at all. It would seem to me that the program is more designed for political reasons than for actually seeing how we can serve the majority of people with the dollars that are available."

The budget features a tax increase for tobacco. Those taxes will be increased by $10 a carton over the next three years.

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