Updated at 3:04 p.m. on March 24 with comments from Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci
As expected, and thanks to the mass abstention of the 17-member NDP caucus, the Liberal budget has been passed, and a potential election averted.
In a private meeting on Monday, Premier Dalton McGuinty and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath sat down to hammer out the details of a plan that would ensure the Liberals' budget would pass, and that would placate the New Democrats.
The April 24 session at Queen's Park began raucously with delegations of teachers and people on social assistance making known their displeasure with the proposed budget, Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas told Northern Life.
When banners began to be unfurled, Speaker Dave Levac ordered debate suspended — essentially giving everyone a time-out — and had the delegations removed.
When it came down to the vote, all 52 Liberal MPPs supported the budget, while all 37 Tories voted against it. With the 17 NDP members abstaining, the budget passed by a vote of 52-37.
Gélinas was quick to point out the NDP does not support what she called a “wrong-headed” Liberal budget, but opted not to topple the government based on the opinions of “thousands” of calls from constituents who told the party they don't like the budget, but like the thought of an election even less.
“Austerity is not the way out of recession. The way out of recession is job creation,” she said.
The biggest concession the NDP managed to wring out of the Liberals is a two-per-cent surtax imposed on those making more than $500,000 a year.
Meanwhile, the government also agreed to a one-per-cent increase to Ontario Works payments that will take effect in the fall.
Noting that “a lot of people feel insecure” about their jobs, Gélinas said the NDP managed to secure some protection for those working in the childcare sector and the horse-racing industry as well, and the government has accepted “some” NDP ideas regarding job creation.
On the health-care front, the Liberals agreed to create a $20-million fund for northern and rural hospitals to help them find efficiencies.
“It is not enough ... it is small, but it will be well-received by the hospital community,” Gélinas said.
Sudbury MPP and Northern Development and Mines Minister Rick Bartolucci said the changes to the budget proposed by the NDP, and accepted by the government, are an example of how work can still get done in a minority parliament.
“These were some constructive changes to the budget, and I'll have no problem supporting them,” he said.
Bartolucci said he was “surprised” the NDP chose not to support the budget by voting for it, instead choosing “to sit on their hands” and abstain, but he took the party's refusal to vote against it as tacit approval.
By extension, he said that by refusing to vote against the budget, the NDP is tacitly approving the divestiture of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission.
“They had a chance to kill this, but they didn't. And, because they sat on their hands, the divestment will move forward,” Bartolucci said.
The United Steelworkers applauded the concessions the NDP secured, but said its members still have concerns when it comes to budget cuts and job losses.
The union cited a Centre for Spatial Economics report which it argues shows that implementing all of the cuts envisioned by the budget would kill 105,000 jobs in 2015, 65,000 of them in the public sector and another 40,000 in the private sector.
Posted by Arron Pickard
