An Economy to Serve People

The party advocates measuring economic progress and wellbeing with evidence-based data, including:
– replacing the GDP as the key metric of government success with an Index of Wellbeing to better measure societal progress, economic and environmental wellbeing, and people’s quality of life, and
– using the system to inform government spending and programming.

Dignity of Work

As a matter of priority within its platform, the party advocates:
– repeal of Bill 124, paying PSWs, nurses and ECEs a fair wage and hiring 33,000 nurses.

Poverty Reduction

Basic Income
The party advocates:
– phasing in a Basic Income, with the first step being to double ODSP and OW rates and reduce aggressive clawbacks.
– eliminating any unnecessary red tape, reporting requirements, and other barriers typically faced by those needing financial support.
– maintaining all existing supplementary supports that are available with current income assistance programs.
– including meaningful consultation with people who have lived experience with poverty and existing social assistance programs in the design of all programs and services aimed at client-centered approaches for reducing poverty.|
– annual reporting of report disaggregated data on the proportion of the population that experiences chronic homelessness, unmet health needs, food insecurity, lack of literacy, and low-paid work.
– prohibiting “payday” lending that takes advantage of those facing financial hardship as a violation of anti-racketeering laws, and work with credit unions to develop a low-cost, small loan alternative to help people get out of debt.

Housing

Thriving Communities
As a priority within its platform, the party advocates:
– freezing urban boundaries, building 1.5M homes and providing people with more choices such as triplexes, fourplexes, and walk up apartments.
– clamping down on speculation because homes are for people, not speculators.
– investing $1 billion per year to build 182,000 affordable community rental homes, including 60,000 supportive homes over the next decade.

The party states that:
– thriving communities are places where there are a mix of homes people can afford near transit, amenities and parks.  Unfortunately, the affordability crisis means that finding an affordable home to rent or buy is pushing people further and further away and forcing them into long, soul-crushing commutes., while turning home ownership into a pipedream for most Ontarians.
– it’s plan begins with cracking down on land speculators unlocking solutions like multiplexes and midrise apartments, and restoring protections for renters.
– building dense, mixed-use connected communities is best for the environment, as it cuts down on car pollution and spares natural areas from more urban sprawl.  It invisions bustling main streets, bike lanes, urban gardens, electric buses, convenient EV charging spots, walkable streets, and more.

The party advocates:
– working with nonprofits to build 182,000 affordable community housing rental homes because everybody deserves a roof over their head.
– because community is not only a home but also streets, parks, workplaces, schools, and shops that give communities their spirit and identity, building communities where residents can access work, services and recreation within 15 minutes of home.
– addressing urgent needs of rural and Northern communities for high-speed Internet passenger rail service.

Affordable Housing
The party notes that:
– housing affordability is a real challenge to many people across the province, with costs rising faster than incomes.  Many households are spending more than 30% of their income to meet their basic housing needs
– the struggle to find affordable housing is different for residents of Northern communities, small towns, and rural counties than in in the GTHA. But it’s a challenge across the province.  There are no neighbourhoods in Barrie, Guelph, Hamilton, Kitchener, Peterborough, Ottawa or Thunder Bay where the average one or two-bedroom apartment is affordable for a full-time minimum wage worker.
– there is an urgent need to build more well-designed, affordable, purpose-built rental housing and to repair and maintain the supply already available.
– its also necessary to work toward ending homelessness

The party advocates:
– mandatory inclusionary zoning and requiring a minimum of 20% affordable units in all housing projects above a certain size.
– creating seed funding for co-operative housing through direct funding and mortgage support.
– providing nonprofit housing providers with the support and access to capital needed to purchase rental buildings to maintain affordability in perpetuity and exploring preemptive right-to-buy for nonprofits.
– partnering with nonprofits, co-ops, and community land trusts to use public land for permanently affordable rental housing and attainable home ownership options through low-cost long-term leases.
– prioritising development approval processes for projects led by or in partnership with non-profit housing providers, and providing low-interest loans via a new revolving fund.
– creating more pathways to ownership, including allowing single family dwellings to be divided into multiple condominium units; ending blind bidding to ensure that the home purchase process is transparent; making home inspections mandatory, at the seller’s expense, to save new homebuyers money on unexpected repairs; consulting on and developing a down payment support program to help low and middle income first-time homebuyers; developing and supporting alternative home-ownership pilot programs such as co-housing, tiny homes, and rent-to-own to assist low and middle income first-time homebuyers.
– increasing incentives and streamlining the application process for first-time homeowners to add affordable rental units to their primary residence to help pay down their mortgage.

Support for Renters
The party advocates:
– reinstating rent controls on all units to regulate rental increases year-to-year and implementing vacancy control to limit rent increases between tenancies, including establishing a clear system that governs which renovations are necessary and can qualify for an increase in rent.
– extending financial support to 311,000 Ontario households via the portable housing benefit.
– updating and strengthening Residential Tenancies Act sections that deal with the state of repair for multi-unit buildings to ensure tenants have homes that are safe.
– strengthening rules and penalties for renovictions and bad faith evictions to keep apartments affordable, and increased funding for the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) to hire additional adjudicators, add transparency to the appointment process, and eliminate forced online hearings. This will help address delays so that both landlords and tenants have timely access to justice.

Speculation and corruption in the housing market
The party advocates:
– implementing a multiple property speculation tax on people and corporations who own more than two houses or condominium units in Ontario. The tax will begin at 20% on the third home and increase with each additional property owned.
– working with municipalities to implement a province-wide vacant homes tax to make it harder to use vacant homes as a lucrative place to park cash.
– implementing an anti-flipping tax on quick turnaround sales.
– cracking down on money laundering and implement a beneficial ownership registry to avoid the practice of nameless companies trading properties.
– implementation of a database that tracks pre-construction condo sales, and requiring developers will to collect and report comprehensive information about buyers to provincial tax authorities to ensure compliance.
– working with all levels of government and housing experts to develop regulations to ease the financialisation of both affordable rental housing stock and single family homes.

Housing First to end homelessness
The party advocates:
– restoring the goal of ending homelessness in Ontario within ten years, including reinstating the homelessness census cancelled by the current government.
– ensuring that stable, permanent housing solutions are the first priority when helping those in need.
– engaging communities having lived experience with homelessness in program development, as well as communities that face disproportionate levels of homelessness, including newcomers and racialized people.
– to expand housing options for people in crisis and transition, building 60,000 permanent supportive housing units over the next decade through innovative partnerships with public, private, and non-profit housing organisations; developing temporary and permanent supportive modular housing projects on provincially owned land as quickly as possible; increasing annual funding for women’s shelters as well as safe and accessible transitional and supportive housing options for women and their families; and increasing funding for culturally appropriate transitional housing.

Jobs, Unions & Employment

Workers’ Rights
The party states that:
– the province is on the cusp of a major transformation in the world of work. The rising number of people in the gig economy deserve the same rights and protections as other workers.
– it believes in treating people with dignity and fairness. This is one reason it supports immediate increases in social assistance as the first step towards a Basic Income Guarantee that will provide economic security and resilience.

The party advocates:
– immediate improvement in workers’ rights rights and wages, including increasing the floor of the minimum wage each year by $1, starting at $16 in 2022, with a top-up in cities where the cost of living is higher; increasing the number of provincially-legislated paid sick days from three to ten, and providing small businesses financial support to fund the program.
– banning employers from requiring a sick note from a medical practitioner when an employee is ill.
– restoring and improving workers’ rights to collective bargaining and immediately repeal of Bill 124 and the problematic sections of Bill 106.
– providing all workers with full and equal access to employment rights and benefits programs like EI, CPP, and WSIB, as well as equal pay for equal work, regardless of whether the employee is permanent, part-time, temporary, or casual.
– immediately ending the practice of deeming whereby the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) unfairly cuts benefits for workers.
– reviewing the Pension Benefits Act to ensure 100% coverage of defined benefit pensions by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Fund in an involuntary pension plan wind up.

To strengthen rights and protections for gig and temp workers, the party advocates implementing a “Gig Workers’ Bill of Rights” including, but not limited to:
– enacting a presumption of employee status and the ABC test under the Employment Standards Act.
– ensuring payment for all hours of work, from app sign-in until sign-out, with a clear and concise breakdown of how pay is calculated.
– ensuring gig workers real wages are not reduced below the minimum wage by compensating for necessary work related expenses.
– making gig work count towards Permanent Residency applications.
– closing the loopholes that can lead to precarious work, including stricter regulations relating to the temp agency industry.
– mandating that temp agency workers earn the same as directly hired workers when they do the same work, and that temp workers must become full hired employees after three months.
– developing a program of portable extended health benefits for workers in the gig economy, retail and hospitality sectors that is tied to the employee even if they were to change employment.

Healthcare workers
The party advocates:
– establishing a nurse-led task force to make recommendations on matters related to the recruitment, retention and safety of nurses.
– immediate repeal of Bill 124 and the problematic sections of Bill 106 and allowing all healthcare workers to bargain collectively for fair wages. In the interim, provide a minimum hourly wage of $35 to registered practical nurses and $25 to personal support workers.
– increasing nursing program enrollments by 10% every year for 7 years and the number of trained nurse practitioners by 50% by 2030 to enable us to meet our target of at least 30,000 additional nurses.
– fast-tracking credential approvals for 15,000 international healthcare workers, including nurses and personal support workers, and supporting Black and Indigenous healthcare workers through greater mentorship opportunities, partnerships with allies, and equitable human resources processes.

Industries, Corporations, and Consumers

Transition to sustainable economy
The party states that:
– the path to a net-zero future is clear, but not easy.  It is ready to lead the way.
– it advocates building livable communities and a green economy, including green innovations that lead to new businesses, careers and better jobs, and that make it more costly for industries to pollute and more profitable to decarbonize; covering tuition costs for skilled trades and clean energy to launch a massive green workforce; and giving a hand to those who need it as the world makes the transition.
– in order to attract some of the billions of dollars that are flowing into the new climate economy, Ontario needs to show that it takes climate change seriously.

In particular, the party advocates:

– ensuring a just and equitable transition by focusing at least 25% of the overall benefits of public investments to reduce climate pollution on disadvantaged communities; funding a $6B climate bonus for low-income households by adding a 1% climate surcharge levy on the province’s top 10% income earners; focusing conservation subsidies on retrofits that reduce energy use for those unduly affected by the cost of energy, especially rural, remote, low-income, and Indigenous communities; redirecting the annual $7B taxpayer subsidy for electricity prices to support energy efficiency and climate action, maintaining energy subsidies only to those in need while also providing free access to upgrades that lower energy costs and consumption; and conducting a transition census of vulnerable jobs and economic sectors to develop strategies that help workers and businesses adapt to a new climate economy.

– training a workforce for the jobs of tomorrow, including creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs by retrofitting 40% of existing homes and workplaces to net zero by 2030, and 100% by 2040; modernizing the apprenticeship application process to provide candidates with an electronic, single-entry access to the apprenticeship application and registration process; reducing the ratio of journeypersons to apprentices to one-to-one; increasing training opportunities by  providing incentives for businesses that participate in training and certification programs in growth areas such as green building, biomedical technology, renewable energy, and sustainable transportation; providing incentives for businesses involved with green retrofits, reforestation, and other forms of green economic activity to provide Ontario youth with valuable job experience; and giving 60,000 people the skills and experience to work in the green economy through a year of free college tuition plus a year of guaranteed work when they graduate with targeted recruitment of women, Indigenous people, and racialized communities.

– supporting and growing grow green businesses by building on Ontario’s strengths in mining, innovation, financing, and auto manufacturing to create a strong electric vehicle manufacturing strategy and electric transportation industry supply chain; providing incentives for businesses investing in energy efficient and low-carbon equipment, buildings, and vehicle fleets; setting a minimum and increasing percentage of public procurements of GHG intensive materials that must be low-carbon, providing a market for heavy industries that are transitioning to low-carbon technologies and processes; and redirecting existing business support programs to help small and medium-sized businesses scale up or transition to the green economy.

– preparing provincial industries for the new climate economy, by scaling up EV innovation and production through an EV technology innovation fund and a Climate Bank; setting strict standards for polluting industries and helping them meet their goals via support from low-interest loans, the Ontario Centres of Excellence, collaboration with clean-tech providers, and public procurement; funding demonstration, and commercialisation of low-carbon industries and low-carbon capital investments in existing industries through grants and loans.

Farming & food production
The party states that:
– the province is losing farmland at the alarming rate of 175 acres per day, largely to urban sprawl and aggregate mining.
– Ontario needs to provide permanent protections for prime agricultural land to keep it from being destroyed by urban sprawl, highways, and gravel mining that threatens our groundwater supply.
– it supports local farm-to-table agriculture, making it easier for small farms to use the latest technology, access the internet and turn a profit, in addition to supporting farmers in adopting more sustainable practices so that farming and climate action go hand-in-hand.
– healthy soil is essential for provincial farms and the food system. It impacts yield and quality, water and nutrient retention, resilience, biodiversity, and climate change adaptation and mitigation. It is necessary to support family farms while they protect this precious resource.
– it advocates creating better connections between farmers and consumers and building a stronger, healthier regional food system.
– it’s increasingly expensive for Ontarians to put food on the table, and the current sprawl agenda of paving over the farmland that feeds us does not help this.

In particular, the party advocates:

– protecting farmland, including freezing urban boundaries now, permanently protecting protect prime farmland from being lost to non-agricultural use; and moving class 1 and 2 soils from the Whitebelt to the Greenbelt.

– increasing access and support for local, nutritious food, including introduction of a nutritious school lunch program for the public school system; providing start-up funding and land for community-owned healthy food markets, community gardens, and rooftop growing spaces, particularly in urban food deserts; setting measurable, made-in-Ontario food purchasing targets for all public institutions; treating surplus food as a valuable resource, first to feed people, then animals, and never to send it to landfill; and providing tax incentives for local food and beverage manufacturers who purchase inputs grown by local farmers.

– supporting local sustainable farming by passing an Organic Products Act to regulate the use of the term “organic” within Ontario; investing in research and innovation that improves the sustainability of how we grow, produce, and distribute our food; revising crop insurance programs to support farming practices that improve soil carbon and soil health; incentivizing on-farm composting of agricultural waste that results in biogas recovery; investing in an Organic Growth Strategy to support transition, small-scale certification, access to organic advisors and capital, expansion of organic research programs, and increased promotion of Ontario organic products; banning the routine use of unnecessary antibiotics in healthy animals; and paying farmers for programs that produce, enhance and maintain ecosystem services leading to cleaner water and air, habitat, carbon sequestration and climate resiliency on agricultural lands (e.g. ALUS).

– investing in the next generation of farmers, including creating policies that support the retention of family-owned farms, farming by experienced farmers among new Canadians, and the succession of farms to a younger generation of farmers; provicing education and grant opportunities to encourage students to enter into the agri-food business; promoting training in specialty programs that focus on sustainable practices and soil-health within agricultural schools; continuing to enhance the supply management system to include more farm products and ensure offsets or grants for those looking to enter the system or with a lower ability to produce; rebuilding agricultural extension programs and hiring soil-health focused agronomists; purchasing available farmland and placing it in protected Land Trusts so it can be made available for dramatically lower costs to new farmers who would otherwise not be able to afford farmland; and advocating for the federal government to restrict farming products from future trade deals.

– making family farming more profitable, by ensuring the Federal-Provincial-Territorial grocery retailer code of conduct is mandatory, enforceable, transparent and benefits both customers and farmers; increasing investments in the Risk Management Program to meet or exceed the previous 85% coverage to improve financial security for farmers; establishing a food processing infrastructure fund to support investments by Ontario-based companies in food processing facilities; eliminating property tax penalties for farmers with small-scale, value-added production facilities on farm; protecting farmers against losses for up to ten years as they transition from chemical agriculture to soil-health agriculture; and shifting program dollars from supporting industrial and intensive animal agriculture to supporting soil health and regenerative agriculture.

Transit & Transportation
The party states that:
– transportation is the biggest source of pollution in Ontario; therefore investing in clean transit systems is a priority for Ontario Greens.
– people need affordable options to get around, and they need relief right now.

The party advocates:
– decreasing the use of fossil fuel vehicles responsible for an enormous share of climate pollution, and moving rapidly towards low carbon transportation options, including electric cars, buses, bikes and walking.
– reducing congestion and stopping urban sprawl, by building building livable, affordable, and connected communities so people aren’t forced to spend hours in expensive, soul-crushing commutes.
– promoting regional public transit, including the GO and Northlander, rather than climate-polluting supersprawler highways, and other healthier, lower carbon options for their commutes, by dedicating permanent, long-term funding for walking and cycling infrastructure.

In particular, the party advocates:

– connecting communities with clean, efficient transit options, by ending the building of new highways and cancelling planned unnecessary highways such as Highway 413, Holland Marsh Highway, and the widening of Highway 417; creating dedicated truck lanes on Highway 407 to reduce congestion and the need for more highways; prioritizing public transit in all transportation planning decisions; cutting transit fares in half for at least three months across all Ontario transit systems, including municipal, to help people avoid the soaring costs of gas; restoring the 50% provincial cost-share for transit operations in order to reduce fare increases for users; electrifying the provinical transit system as quickly as possible, including by adding 4,000 electric and fuel-cell buses by 2030; tripling the number of dedicated bus lanes by 2025; ensuring all transportation decisions are evidence-based, without political interference, and including consultation with planning experts throughout the planning process.

– increasing transit connections outside of the GTHA by expanding all-day, 2-way GO service to leave every 15 minutes during peak periods and every 30 minutes off peak, including weekend service; offering at least one express service each way during weekday peak periods; establishing a clean, affordable, accessible intercity electric bus service to connect all communities across the province, ensuring connections in small, rural communities and dedicated bus lanes; fully funding the Northlander passenger rail service; exploring on-demand systems for public transit, especially in suburban and rural communities; and supporting regional fare integration and seamless travel between transit systems.

– connecting neighbourhoods with people-powered transportation by implementing Vision Zero to prioritise road safety for pedestrians and cyclists; creating a fund for municipalities to build protected bike lanes while preserving safety and curb access for seniors and people with disabilities; supporting sharing and rental systems for bikes, e-bikes and low-emission vehicles with incentives geared to income; requiring secure bike parking and e-bike charging to be provided in new and existing multi-unit buildings, in surface parking lots, and at all government buildings; redesigning roads to reduce motorists’ speed in areas that are a particular danger to pedestrians and cyclists, and eliminating hazards such as slip lanes; requiring all new or resurfaced highways to have paved shoulders for safe cycling; and establishing commuter cycling networks across Ontario.

– connecting people with better broadband by making broadband internet an essential service and rolling out high-speed access across the province; using regulations to level the playing field for small, local internet service providers; and supporting provincial funding for programs to study best practices for teleworking as a climate-friendly alternative to commuting.

Small & Local Businesses
The party states that an essential part of any community is small business. It wants to make it easier for small businesses to succeed.  For those who live in urban cities, rural hamlets or somewhere in between, communities can have local shops, services and parks that are close by and easy to get to.

The party advocates:

– helping small neighbourhood businesses recover and thrive by expanding the Digital Main Street program to include nonprofit organisations and provide fulfilment platforms that better enable small, local businesses to compete with large online companies; developing a small business grant program for Black-owned businesses; supporting the increased staycation tax credit and ensuring it includes dining at restaurants; working with insurance providers to develop an affordable commercial insurance program for small businesses; developing a program to help COVID-affected small businesses file for bankruptcy in a fair and non-punitive way; improving opportunities for small local businesses and nonprofits to win public contracts through targets and by decreasing current financial and informational barriers; allowing Ontario’s craft spirits, brewers, and wine producers to open independent, off-site stores; and allowing boutique wine, craft beer and artisan spirit retail outlets; improving the distribution network to work for small businesses; and allowing access for hospitality to purchase from these suppliers at a wholesale price of up to 20%.

– creating a new regulatory framework for small business, by undertaking a review of regulations in order to weed out red tape and costs that disproportionately affect small businesses; creating standardised leases to ensure fairness and transparency and ensure that priority is given to existing tenants when leases are up for renewal; creating rent control guidelines for year-over-year increases that apply to all commercial tenants, including new tenants; and implementing a mechanism to enforce rules and resolve disputes.

– supporting local arts and social enterprises, by decreasing land taxes payable for buildings in which below market rent opportunities are available to creative and social enterprises; developing a made-in-Ontario social enterprise strategy with the nonprofit and cooperative sectors to drive local job creation and support rural, remote, and urban self-reliance; creating a stabilisation fund for the non-profit sector to ensure that nonprofits and charities can help rebuild the economy and communities; affirming the arms-length operations of, and increase investment in, the Ontario Arts Council and the Ontario Trillium Foundation; and reinstating support for the Indigenous Culture Fund.

An Economy at the Service of All People

The preface of the party’s 2025 platform states that:
– growing the provincial economy starts with investing in workers, communities and healthcare, not just the rich.
– it proposes investment in needed roads, hospitals and schools, reducing gridlock, and supporting economic growth and diversification.

Specifically, the party advocates:
– guaranteeing everyone a family doctor in four years, ensuring that mental healthcare is covered under OHIP, and supporting seniors to age with dignity.
– slashing taxes, saving taxpayers thousands annually by permanently cutting income tax for workers and eliminating sales tax (HST) on home heating and hydro bills.
– building more affordable homes by eliminating development charges, restoring the dream of homeownership, and bringing fairness back to the rental market.
– permanently doubling ODSP so Ontario’s most vulnerable are not left behind.
– clearing the school repair backlog, improving safety at school, and providing education that prepares Ontario for the future.

To grow the provincial economy against threatened US tariffs, the party advocates:
– supporting Ontario businesses with a new Fight Tariffs Fund that gives them access to lower-than-market interest rates (government rates).
– prioritizing infrastructure investment in hospitals, schools, roads, and public transit.
– ensuring that Ontario taxpayer dollars support local businesses and jobs by excluding American companies like Starlink from procurement.
– working with other provinces to eliminate nonsensical interprovincial trade barriers by adopting a policy of mutual recognition of skills and regulated professions and building a truly Team Canada approach to growth and diversification.
– cutting youth unemployment by half by creating 40,000 new paid co-op, internship and apprenticeship positions through tax credits for employers who hire young people.
– launching a provincial Growth Strategy to ensure Ontario becomes a competitive place to attract talent, set up and grow a business, afford fixed costs such as clean energy and rent, and have best-in-class consumer protections.
– negotiating in good faith and eliminating the practice of using the notwithstanding clause to trample on workers’ rights.
– offering a $150,000 bonus to patriotic nurses and doctors who are currently practicing in the U.S. but want to come home and support our publicly-funded healthcare system.

Cost of Living
To assist Ontarians with the cost of living, the party advocates slashing taxes, including:
– introducing a tax cut to deliver $1,150 in permanent financial relief for Ontario families, including permanently cutting taxes for Ontario workers on taxable income between $51,446 and $75,000 by 22%, from the current 9.15% to 7.15%; as well as eliminating sales tax (HST) on home heating and hydro bills.
– reducing and/or eliminating personal income tax for low-income workers by indexing the Low-Income Workers Tax Credit.
– creating a permanent tax credit worth 20% of the installation cost of energy-saving technologies at home, such as heat pumps.
– making it easier for small businesses to compete with big box stores by slashing small business taxes by 50%, delivering up to $18,000 of tax relief to roughly 450,000 businesses that employ almost three million people.

Poverty Reduction

Housing
The party proposes building more affordable homes, by cutting taxes on housing and restoring the dream of homeownership by:
–  eliminating the Ontario Land Transfer Tax for first-time homebuyers, seniors downsizing and non-profit homebuilders.
– scrapping development charges on new housing, cutting costs by as much as $170,000 on each new family-sized home.
– introducing a Better Communities Fund to help municipalities cover infrastructure costs.

Rental Fairness
To promote affordability, predictability and fairness in the rental market, the party advocates:
– building more co-op and rental apartments by removing punitive and  discriminatory extra taxes like Community Benefits Charges.
– introducing fair, phased-in rent control.
– resolving new landlord-tenant disputes in under two months and clearing the 53,000-case backlog at the Landlord-Tenant Board urgently.
– establishing a Rental Emergency Support for Tenants (REST) Fund, a provincial rent bank to provide short-term, interest-free loans for tenants facing financial emergencies to prevent evictions and homelessness.
– modernizing building codes and subjective design rules (ex. setback, step back, angular plane), establishing a provincial catalogue of pre-approved housing designs, creating more housing near transit and arterial roads following best practices adopted by other jurisdictions like British Columbia and speeding up the conversion of underutilized offices and commercial spaces to homes.

Corporations, Competition & Consumers

Consumer Rights
To protect consumer rights, the party advocates a comprehensive review of provincial auto insurance practices and premiums, which have become the most expensive in Canada, in order to bring costs down for consumers, improve accident care and better protect owners from auto theft.

Infrastructure & Transit
To build needed infrastructure while protecting the environment, the party advocates:
– investing in municipal and regional road repair and maintenance, widening provincial highways in congested areas, upgrading winter maintenance of key provincial highways, fixing and repairing bridges and add turning lanes where needed.
– reducing gridlock and investing in much-needed provincial projects, such as uploading and expanding the Ottawa LRT, electrifying and increasing GO service throughout the GTA and southwestern Ontario, and expediting the delivery of planned transit projects in Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, Mississauga and Brampton.
– axing the current government’s carbon tax and developing a Made in Ontario environmental action plan in conjunction with the federal government and other provinces that protects Ontario’s land, water, air, biodiversity and communities.
– protecting prime farmland, including the Greenbelt and championing a sustainable agri-food sector to support farmers and rural communities.
– leveraging the Better Communities Fund to keep municipalities whole and keep property taxes low.

Economy at the Service of All

The party states that:
– life is more expensive than ever, from basics like groceries to the cost of housing.
– bad deals and wasteful schemes have cost everyone.
– it will take immediate action to fight rising costs.

Poverty Reduction; Consumer Protection

To fight rising costs, the party advocates:
– controlling grocery prices, by: (1) providing a Monthly Grocery Rebate based on how much the cost of essential groceries like milk, bread and vegetables have increased under the current government, tied to income and numbers of people in households and (2) bringing transparency to grocery prices by forcing big retailers to display signage when they raise prices on basic grocery items more than two per cent in a week (by weight, to protect against shrinkflation), and cracking down on price fixing and other unfair practices by establishing a new consumer watchdog to keep food prices fair.
– bringing in real rent control, also known as vacancy control, to protect tenants and maintain the province’s existing supply of affordable homes.
– creating a universal School Food Program so that every child, from Kenora to Windsor is set up to succeed, saving families money every day and supporting local farms by using fresh food prepared and grown in Ontario.
– implementing $10/day child care after years of delays by the current government, creating 53,000 new, public or not-for-profit affordable childcare spaces by working with providers and service managers, and by removing the rules that limit municipalities in creating their own child care spaces.
– doubling social assistance rates for ODSP and OW to get people out of deep poverty.
– ensuring an abundant supply of reliable and affordable energy, towards a legislated target of achieving a net-zero economy no later than 2050, including making evidence-based and cost-effective investments in clean energy and efficiency from a mix of non-emitting sources, storage and conservation.
– completing long-planned priority transmission investments to deliver abundant clean energy to expanding industries, such as auto manufacturers and greenhouse growers.
– providing free or discounted electric heat pumps to Ontario households, with access to easy interest-free financing. Heat pump rebates of up to $19,500 will be available depending on household income, with an additional $5,000 available for households that heat with propane, heating oil, or coal.

Housing

The party states that:
– housing is a human right. Everybody deserves a decent home they can afford, in the community they want to live in.
– prior governments’ failure to get homes built and keep rents down has made it nearly impossible for Ontarians to buy or rent a decent home they can afford.  Housing starts are down, and homelessness up.  Urgent action is required.

To make more new affordable homes available, the party advocates:
– as a part of the largest homebuilding program in generations, using grants, low-cost public financing, public land, fast-tracked approvals and other supports to enable the construction, acquisition and repair of at least 300,000 permanently affordable homes.
– enabling the purchase of existing privately-owned rental units, to be converted to permanently affordable public, non-profit or co-op housing, like Toronto’s Multi-Unit Residential Acquisition (MURA) Program and UK’s Council Homes Acquisition Programme (CHAP).
– protecting the existing supply of affordable rentals, including completing renovations and repairs.
– creating, through this program, thousands of new jobs in residential construction, while keeping skilled labour employed in periods of market slowdown.
– creating 60,000 new supportive housing units province-wide, allowing people living in encampments or the shelter system to move into a safe, permanent home, while connecting them to mental health care, addiction treatment and other ongoing supports.
– updating zoning and planning rules to make it easier and cheaper to build all types of new homes, including legalizing more affordable options like semis, townhomes and fourplex apartments in all neighbourhoods, and midrises near transit as-of-right.
– helping municipalities address their housing needs by uploading the cost of housing, emergency shelters, and homelessness prevention programs back to the province, while maintaining locally focused delivery through municipal service managers; and working with municipalities to create incentives for affordable housing in the marketplace, including development charge easements.
– ensuring that new homes are future-proofed for the energy transition with low-cost EV-ready infrastructure, so that homeowners with garages can install electric vehicle chargers cheaply when they choose to make the switch, instead of paying thousands of dollars in retrofitting costs.
– accelerating the expansion of broadband internet infrastructure into  Northern Ontario and end years of delays that, including canceling an existing $100 million contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink and replacing it with a Canadian alternative that offers better value and security for Ontario consumers.
– uploading back costs that were unfairly downloaded onto municipal taxpayers, including the costs of maintaining provincially owned “connecting link” highways, including providing adequate, predictable and consistent formula-based provincial funding to ensure that municipalities are able to maintain, snow-clear and repair their roads, bridges and other infrastructure, with additional support for small and Northern municipalities that must look after large areas with small tax bases.
– protecting Greenbelt, and Ontario’s prime farmland, by focusing growth sustainably and cost-effectively within the pre-2022 urban boundaries, keeping infrastructure costs down in the process.

To protect renters, the party advocates:
– immediate introduction of real rent control, also known as vacancy control, so rent control applies to the rental, and not just the tenancy. This will remove the incentive of unethical landlords to use bad faith evictions and renovictions to squeeze out existing tenants so they can charge a higher rent to the next tenant.
– closing the loophole that exempts units built since 2018 from rent control and bringing in a fairer system of low interest repair loans so the cost of maintaining buildings isn’t borne by tenants, and small landlords are supported with unexpected repair costs.

Jobs, Industries, Unions, Transportation & Infrastructure

The party states that:
– in the face of American tariffs, people are worried about what the future holds, if they’ll lose their job or if things will become even more expensive than they already are.
– as Ontarians face this serious economic challenge to our country and province, the current prime minister quit his job and plunged the province into an election.

To protect Ontario jobs, the party advocates:

– defending Ontario jobs, including fighting back as part of a strong Team Canada, and building a more tariff-proof Ontario that can withstand future economic threats, while defending Ontario families, jobs, businesses and economy, partnering Ontario industries and unions to protect jobs and pensions of Ontario, especially in the auto, steel, forestry and agricultural sectors.
– accelerating housing and infrastructure work immediately, including fast-tracking building housing of all types and sizes and reprioritizing critical transit projects like Line 2 in Toronto and GO transit expansion.
– buying and building Canadian, making use of Canada’s rich resources to fuel Ontario’s economy and working to improve interprovincial cooperation and remove barriers to interprovincial trade, including immediately directing provincial agencies to prioritize Canadian goods in their procurement processes; and ensuring that procurement for public infrastructure projects prioritizes Ontario industries and goods like steel, aluminum, lumber, and manufactured goods from impacted sectors.
– securing family incomes with a federal-provincial income assistance plan to protect any worker who loses their job as a result of tariffs, negotiating with the federal government to expand employment insurance and prevent any delays getting EI out to impacted workers and removing provincial income tax on any income supports for workers who experience tariff-related job loss.
– playing on Team Canada, including taking the lead with other provinces and the federal government, speaking with one voice and acting as one Team to protect jobs and the economy and finding new markets for Ontario products and investment opportunities across Canada and around the world.
– strengthening and diversifying Ontario’s trade relationships, including seeking out new trade relationships to find new markets for made-in-Ontario products, and encouraging investment in Ontario with democratic allies.
– fighting tariff inflation, to fight rising costs. It has a plan for real rent control, affordable childcare, and fixing traffic for Ontario to fight inflation.
– launching a Premier’s Council on the Economy, bringing together business, labour, civil society and municipal leaders to coordinate a strong response that protects the economy, and expanding the Ontario Made Manufacturing Tax Credit, doubling the maximum amount and broadening eligibility to include advanced manufacturing applications, and extending the life of the tax credit to 10 years to enable long term investment.
– launching an Ontario Tariff Fund, an emergency measure providing direct payments to businesses impacted by U.S. tariffs, requiring job retention and fair practices, and filling the gaps of any federal programs to support critical Ontario industries.
– restarting the Ontario Business Costs Rebate Program for tariff-impacted industries, to provide immediate relief on property taxes and energy costs for companies that keep jobs in Ontario.
– complete removal of the cap from the Risk Management Program, ensuring the government has the tools it needs to protect Ontario farmers and the jobs they support, and addressing tariff threats on agricultural products like pork, beef, grain products and fresh vegetables by strengthening local supply chains while directing provincial government and provincially-funded entities to adopt Buy Ontario public procurement policies to offset the impact of tariffs on Ontario food exporters.
– supporting Ontario small businesses, creating conditions that will enable local enterprises to thrive, including working with the federal government to support succession planning, allowing owners to form employee ownership trusts and put in place incentives for the creation of trusts and employee-owned co-operatives.
– ensuring that its Buy Ontario plan engages in strategic government procurement from small and medium sized enterprises, leveraging Ontario purchasing power to support Ontario talent.
– not increasing taxes on Ontario small businesses.
– supporting a strong Ontario mining sector, and the tens of thousands of good jobs it provides. In place of the piecemeal and bulldozer-first approach of prior governments, which has failed to develop the Ring of Fire, it proposes beginning a formal consultation process with the Mattawa Tribal Council First Nations members, and other impacted First Nations on decisions related to the Ring of Fire to create generational infrastructure, jobs, and revenue sharing opportunities in the North, and help get critical minerals to power Ontario’s future.
– doubling Ontario’s Career Ready Program so Ontario colleges and universities can create additional work-integrated learning opportunities, creating thousands of new, paid co-op and internship opportunities for young people.
– supporting pathways into the skilled trades, from shop classes to those seeking a career change later in life, with continued investment in the Skills Development Fund and workers’ training centres across the province.
– establishing a Childcare Workforce Strategy to make jobs in child care good careers, including developing and implementing a wage grid and decent work standards, including a salary scale starting at $25 per hour for all child care workers, and $30 per hour for RECES; paid sick days; paid professional development time; paid programming time.
– establishing Ontario’s first Youth Climate Corps, giving opportunities to young Ontarians to learn skills and earn a fair wage while helping Ontario communities reduce their emissions, restore their natural environments, and become more resilient in a changing climate.
– working with artists and creators to promote and market Ontario’s book publishing, film and television, live performance, digital and arts industries; ensuring both the stability and competitiveness of Ontario’s film, television and digital tax credits; and strongly supporting Ontario Creates and Ontario Arts Council programs to ensure people throughout the arts and culture sector have the support and respect they need.
– partnering with Ontario’s francophone community to grow and promote book publishing, film and television, live performance, and cultural festivals in French — a key thread in the tapestry of our province.

To promote respect for workers, the party advocates:
– continuing to promote reforms that benefit workers that have been rejected by the current government, including: 10-days paid leave; a living wage; equal pay; anti-scab legislation, and enforcement against workplace law violations, including severe penalties for unsafe work conditions.
– ending the practice of deeming where injured workers are ‘deemed’ to be able to work phantom jobs they don’t have, and overhauling the WSIB system to better protect the health and safety of all Ontario workers.
– properly classify app-based gig workers as employees and bring in equal pay legislation, and legally recognizing democratically-ratified union agreements covering gig workers; modernizing the Employment Standards Act to ensure all workers are protected through strong, modern and enforced labour standards legislation.

As a part of its proposal for fighting against rising costs, the party advocates:
– making it easier to form a union and collect the bigger pay cheques that come with it, by returning to a simple card certification system.
– removing any barriers to a newly unionized workplace’s first contract being implemented and banning the use of replacement workers during job disputes.

Industries 

Small Businesses
To protect Ontario jobs, the party advocates:
– launching a Premier’s Council on the Economy, bringing together business, labour, civil society and municipal leaders to coordinate a strong response that protects the economy, and expanding the Ontario Made Manufacturing Tax Credit, doubling the maximum amount and broadening eligibility to include advanced manufacturing applications, and extending the life of the tax credit to 10 years to enable long term investment.
– launching an Ontario Tariff Fund, an emergency measure providing direct payments to businesses impacted by U.S. tariffs, requiring job retention and fair practices, and filling the gaps of any federal programs to support critical Ontario industries.
– restarting the Ontario Business Costs Rebate Program for tariff-impacted industries, to provide immediate relief on property taxes and energy costs for companies that keep jobs in Ontario.
– supporting Ontario small businesses, creating conditions that will enable local enterprises to thrive, including working with the federal government to support succession planning, allowing owners to form employee ownership trusts and put in place incentives for the creation of trusts and employee-owned co-operatives.
– ensuring that its Buy Ontario plan engages in strategic government procurement from small and medium sized enterprises, leveraging Ontario purchasing power to support Ontario talent.
– not increasing taxes on Ontario small businesses.

Automotive, Steel, Forestry, Agriculture
To protect Ontario jobs from the threat of tariffs, the party advocates:
– defending Ontario jobs, including fighting back as part of a strong Team Canada, and building a more tariff-proof Ontario that can withstand future economic threats, while defending Ontario families, jobs, businesses and economy, partnering Ontario industries and unions to protect jobs and pensions of Ontario, especially in the auto, steel, forestry and agricultural sectors. 

Transit
To fight against the rising cost of living, the party advocates making commuting more affordable, reliable and convenient by:
–  expanding intercity bus and rail transit, including the Hazel McCallion Line + Mississauga Loop; extending LRT into downtown Brampton and two-way All Day GO to Kitchener, Guelph, Brampton, Niagara, London, and Bowmanville; completing GO stations at Mimico, Oshawa, Clarington, Bowmanville, Grimsby, and Parklawn GO.
– fast-tracking completion of Northlander Passenger Service.
– Supporting Huron Central and Algoma Central Rail Lines.
– making municipal transit service more reliable, frequent, affordable and accessible for riders by restoring 50% provincial funding for municipal transit and paratransit net operational costs.

As of 23 February 2025, four days prior to the election it called, the party has published no comprehensive updated statement of its proposed policies. 

Economy to Serve People

The party states that it believes, as a matter of principle:
– that economic freedom, entrepreneurial spirit and the right to private property are essential to economic prosperity and political freedom.
– that social justice entails equality of opportunity, including fair and equal treatment for all Ontarians and the provision of support to those in need.

In its 2024 budget the party states that:
– Ontario is on a mission to rebuild its economy. To address an infrastructure deficit, the government  is leading the way to get new roads and highways built, while supporting the largest transit expansion in North America.
– the province was left behind with over 300,000 manufacturing jobs lost between the sector’s peak in 2004 and 2018.  Over the last three years, the province has created more jobs than ever before.
– it is continuing to rebuild Ontario’s economy by attracting domestic and international manufacturing investments, expanding the province’s electricity capacity, supporting innovation, and helping small businesses thrive.

On February 20, 2025, the party published an online statement stating that in order to build the True North, Strong and Free, it proposed to:
– support Canadian sovereignty and economic prosperity by implementing and advocating for policies that make Canada more united and self-reliant.
– advocate for new cross-country infrastructure projects and resource development projects to bind Canada together, reduce dependence on the United States and create new opportunities for Canadian workers and communities., including:

• Supporting pipelines, rail lines and other critical infrastructure projects tot create greater export opportunities for Canada’s oil, gas, critical minerals, agricultural and other natural resources to reach new markets; support for Energy East, Northern Gateway and pipeline projects to Canada’s northern coast. With renewed American cooperation and partnership, Ontario would support the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline project.

• Advocating that the federal government remove unnecessary federal barriers and red tape from major projects under provincial jurisdiction, including scrapping redundant and wrongheaded impact assessment requirements that unnecessarily raise costs and slow down approvals for nation-building projects like Ontario’s new grid-scale nuclear power plants and critical mineral projects in the Ring of Fire.

• Advocating for a new federal infrastructure program that provides predictable and long-term funding, particularly for trade-related infrastructure such as airports, ports and transportation infrastructure to help diversify Canada’s economy.

– abolishing internal trade barriers that cost the national economy up to $200 billion every year, reduce our national GDP by up to 7.3 per cent and add up to 14.5 per cent to the costs of goods and services the Canadians purchase across the country, including:

• Removing all of Ontario’s remaining party-specific exemptions following a final assessment under the Canada Free Trade Agreement and encouraging all other provinces to follow suit.

• Supporting labour mobility across Canada by streamlining credential recognition for certified professionals, expanding existing exemptions to more credentialed occupations and reducing existing labour mobility exceptions.

• Fighting red tape that blocks interprovincial trade by recognizing regulatory standards and certifications across Canada with Regulatory Recognition Agreements for key sectors such as trucking, to ensure that a good or service that is sold or used in one province or territory can be readily sold or used in all provinces and territories by default.

• Investing $50 million to launch the new Ontario Together Trade Fund to support businesses that make near-term investments to service more interprovincial customers, develop new markets and re-shore critical supply chains.

• Immediately enabling direct-to-consumer sales of alcohol products with all willing provinces and territories, which will provide new markets for Ontario wineries, breweries, cideries and distilleries and more choice for Ontario consumers, as well as for producers and consumers across Canada.

– ensuring that Canada meets its national and international security and defence obligations, including:

• Strongly advocating that the federal government immediately increase defence spending to meet and exceed Canada’s minimum two per cent NATO commitment and link procurement to domestic economic development opportunities.

• Investing $200 million for the Shipbuilding Grant Program under Ontario’s Marine Transportation Strategy to help make Ontario’s shipbuilding industry a full regional partner under the federal government’s National Shipbuilding Strategy and secure Canadian contracts to build, retrofit, and repair Canadian Navy ships in Ontario.

• Creating a new Defence Security Investment Tax Credit to attract greater investment and job creation in the province and help meet our two per cent of GDP NATO commitment, including by supporting investments in innovative critical technologies such as artificial intelligence and cybersecurity to support the future of defence technologies.

• Providing $50 million more to Venture Ontario, the province’s venture capital agency, to make dedicated capital fund investments to support domestic start-ups in strategic technology areas that support our national defence.

Affordability
In its 2024 Budget the party states that:

– inflation and interest rates are up, along with everyday costs.  It therefore continues to invest in key public services and lay out a path to a balanced budget without raising taxes or fees.
– in order to put money back in Ontarians’ pockets, it is working to make public transit, automobile driving, postsecondary school, and other activities more affordable.
– to help control fuel prices, it proposes to extend gasoline tax rate cuts implemented in 2022, maintaining cuts of 5.7 cents per litre for gasoline and 5.3 cents per litre for other fuels.
– it is keeping electricity costs down for about 100,000 additional families by expanding the eligibility for the Ontario Electricity Support Program (OESP). Beginning March 1, 2024, the income eligibility thresholds for the OESP were increased by up to 35 per cent to provide thousands of additional low‐income families access to the program and make electricity more affordable. Families can apply for the OESP at any time. The OESP provides an on‐bill credit of $35 to $75 per month, depending on household size, to provide support for low‐income households when paying their electricity bills. Higher monthly credits of between $52 to $113 are available to customers who are Indigenous, living with Indigenous family members, using electric heating, or using certain electricity‐intensive medical devices.

Carbon taxes
In its 2024 budget, the party states that:
– it is committed to protecting people and businesses from the high costs of a new and unexpected provincial carbon pricing program, by introducing legislation that would require the provincial government to first ask the people of Ontario, via a referendum, before implementing a new provincial carbon pricing program.
– it also continues to call on the federal government to eliminate the federal carbon tax, which has increased inflation and made life less affordable for Ontarians.

Transit and Commuting
As a part of its proposal to make life affordable for Ontarians, the party’s 2025 Budget states that it is working to keep costs down for public transit riders and commuters by:
– implementing the One Fare program, which allows riders to pay only once to transfer between transit systems in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
– banning any new tolls on new and existing provincial highways, including the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway once uploaded to the province.
– freezing fees on driver’s licenses and Ontario Photo Cards, ensuring that any future increases can only be made through legislation.
– eliminating license plate renewal fees and stickers in 2022 and eliminating the Drive Clean program for passenger vehicles.
– moving forward with auto insurance reforms that would empower Ontario drivers with more affordable options, improved access to benefits and create a more modern system, which are planned to be done in a way to help ensure that drivers are able to make informed decisions when choosing insurance coverage options.   Mandatory auto insurance accident benefit coverage will continue to apply to medical, rehabilitation and attendant care benefits, while all other benefits would become optional.

Poverty & Housing

Housing
In its 2024 budget, the party states that:
– building more homes is critical to rebuilding Ontario’s economy, and that building homes requires housing-enabling infrastructure.
– to that end, it proposes allocations of $1 billion to support core infrastructure projects, such as roads and water infrastructure, including quadrupling funding for municipal water projects to total $825 million through an application‐based program; $1.2 billion over three years to support municipalities that meet or exceed housing targets they have pledged to achieve by 2031; and $120 million for small, rural, and Northern communities that have not been assigned a housing target, to support their unique needs and circumstances.
– to further alleviate the housing crisis, it proposes to extend authority broadly to all single‐ and upper‐tier municipalities to impose a tax on vacant homes, as is currently authorized in Toronto, Ottawa and Hamilton, and continues to strength the provincial non-resident speculation tax, including y working with other provincial governments and the federal government to increase information sharing to better understand home vacancy, foreign purchasing, and ownership patterns.
– to encourage the construction of more purpose-built rental housing, it has taken steps to enchance a housing rebate from provincial HST to remove the full 8% for qualifying new construction, and increasing the authority of municipalities to offer reduced property tax rates for new multi-residential rental properties.
– to help make homeownership a reality for more Ontario families, it is embracing modular construction and other innovative options to accelerate development, improve affordability, and crate jobs, including engaging with the construction sector, municipalities and Indigenous communities on the use of modular construction and other innovative technologies so that more people can live in a home that they can afford.

Jobs, Unions, & Employment

Prior to its current term in office, the party stated that governments do not create jobs on their own, but create conditions that make it easier to start or grow a business, or to invest in the province.

At that time the party advocated:
– instead of corporate welfare, making business taxes competitive by reducing them from 11.5 to 10.5 percent, and lowering small business tax rates by 8.7 percent.
– cancelling the Jobs & Prosperity Fund, which it believes has favored small groups of businesses on an invitation-only basis.
– instead of complex regulations that reward insiders and those who employ lobbyists, cutting red tape to reward entrepreneurship & ideas.
– supporting regional economic development funds for regions like rural and northern Ontario.
– to help fill skilled jobs, increasing access to apprenticeships and reforming the foreign credential recognition process to help qualified immigrants come to Ontario and contribute to the economy to their fullest potential immediately.
– expanding sales of beer and wine through corner stores, grocery stores, and box stores, based on market demand; maintaining LCBO’s role in wholesale and distribution.

In its 2024 Budget, the party states that:
– it remains committed to investing in workers and key public services, without raising taxes or fees.
– it continues to make it easier for workers to get the skills they need for better jobs and bigger paycheques, while also helping them to plan for a secure retirement, through investments in training to help fill in‐demand jobs in key areas like the skilled trades and health care.  It has allocated $100 million in 2024–25 to help workers and job seekers, including apprentices, get the skills they need to advance in their careers. This is in addition to more than $860 million that has been invested since its launch in 2021. To date, the program has delivered close to 600 training projects to help more than 500,000 workers, including those in the skilled trades and health care.
– it is allocating $224 million to expand access to brick-and-mortar training centres to help unions, Indigenous centres, and industry associations build new training centres, or upgrade and convert existing facilities into new training centres with state‐of‐the‐art equipment and technology. These investments will prepare people for emerging and in‐demand jobs in critical sectors, including construction and health care, among others.
– to help promote apprenticeships in the skilled trades, it he government has previously invested more than $1 billion and now proposes to provide an additional $16.5 million annually over the next three years for programs that focus on breaking the stigma and attracting more young people into the skilled trades, simplifying the system and encouraging employer participation in apprenticeships.
– in addition, the budget allocates $21.1 million to expand the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP), a specialized high school program that gives students who have completed Grade 10 the chance to explore the trades through cooperative education courses, while completing their Ontario Secondary School Diploma; and $41.8 million to launch approximately 100 pre‐apprenticeship training projects around the province to help young people get firsthand experience working in trades, including a paid work placement with a local employer.

Industries, Corporations, and Consumers

In its 2024 Budget the party states that it has taken significant action to lower costs for businesses to help them compete, grow and weather today’s economic uncertainty. Small businesses account for more than 97 per cent of all businesses in the province, helping to drive the economy and create good-paying jobs for workers in growing communities across Ontario.

For 2024 the party proposes allocating an estimated $8.0 billion in cost savings and support for Ontario businesses, of which $3.7 billion would go to small businesses, including:
– implementing the Ontario Made Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit to help local manufacturers invest and expand, by lowering costs for eligible investments in buildings, machinery or equipment used in manufacturing or processing in the province.
– temporarily cutting the gas tax by 5.7 cents per litre and the fuel tax by 5.3 cents per litre beginning July 1, 2022, which are proposed to be extended to December 31, 2024, to help reduce the cost of gas and fuel for Ontario businesses.
– supporting cuts to Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) premium rates without reducing benefits, leading to a reduction in payroll costs for businesses.
– increasing the Employer Health Tax (EHT) exemption from $490,000 to $1 million. The EHT exemption increase helps businesses by reducing the tax for eligible private‐sector employers on their total Ontario payroll.
– cancelling the cap‐and‐trade carbon tax to remove its cost impact from items such as gasoline, diesel fuel and natural gas.
– lowering high Business Education Tax (BET) rates, providing $450 million in annual savings for over 200,000 employers, or 95 per cent of all business properties in Ontario;
– reducing the small business corporate income tax rate to 3.2 per cent and expanding access to this preferential rate, helping small businesses compete and thrive by lowering their costs.
– implementing the Regional Opportunities Investment Tax Credit to support businesses that make investments and expand in regions of Ontario that have lagged in employment growth.
– allowing businesses to accelerate writeoffs of capital investments for income tax purposes, to support businesses that make eligible investments across Ontario.
– implementing the Comprehensive Electricity Plan in January 2021, which is lowering electricity costs by an estimated average of 13 to 16 per cent in 2024 for medium‐size and larger industrial and commercial customers, respectively.

In addition, the 2024 budget proposes:
– investing an additional $6.8 million over two years to enhance the Starter Company Plus program to provide grants of up to $5000 to eligible entrepreneurs and to support Small Business Enterprise Centres, which provide free consultations with qualified business consultants, internet and computer access for business research and planning, review of business plans, workshops and seminars, and guidance on licenses, permits, regulations, registrations, and other required documents.

Banking and Finance
The party’s 2025 Budget states that:
– the provinces credit unions and caisses populaires play an important role in extending financial services to people and businesses in urban and rural communities across the province. Ontario credit unions manage assets of about $95 billion, employ about 9,000 staff and serve approximately 1.8 million members through almost 550 locations. To support their ability to compete and help ensure broader market stability, it is important to enable direct access to the Bank of Canada’s emergency liquidity facilities for Ontario credit unions. It is encouraged by the proposal in the federal 2023 Fall Economic Statement to amend the Canadian Payments Act, which would allow eligible provincially regulated credit unions direct access to the Bank of Canada’s Standing Term Liquidity Facility and its Emergency Lending Assistance, and looks forward to ongoing collaboration as changes are being implemented.
– it supports the ongoing work of the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) to modernize the dispute resolution framework available to Ontario investors and remains committed to a modernized capital markets framework that protects investors. The OSC is working to develop rules governing the distribution of disgorged funds to harmed investors, and recently enhanced protections for whistleblowers are intended to encourage individuals to come forward to report misconduct. These measures support enforcement efforts and help increase investor confidence in Ontario’s capital markets.

Small Businesses
Prior to its current term in office, the party advocated:
– cutting hydro rates for small businesses and farmers by 12%.

To support small and medium sized businesses, the party’s 2024 budget has committed $40 million to support advanced manufacturers in the automotive, aerospace, chemical, and life sciences sectors.

Innovation
Prior to its current term in office, the party advocated:
– setting up an emissions-reduction fund to invest in new technologies within the province

Manufacturing
Prior to its current term in office, the party stated that:
– it launched the $50 million Ontario Together Fund to help manufacturers retool their operations to produce personal protective equipment (PPE), critical supplies and equipment, and develop technology‐driven solutions and services for business to reopen safely

In its 2024 budget the party:
– proposes, in order to strengthen manufacturing and attract investment, to implement a manufacturing tax credit, a 10% refundable corporate income tax credit up to $2 miillion per year for eligible investment in buildings, machinery and equipment for use in manufacturing wihtin the province.
– states that it established Invest Ontario in July 2020 to help attract investments from around the world and support businesses to expand their operations within the province.  To date, Invest Ontario has helped secure $2.4 billion in investments which are expected to create 2,600 new jobs, and has other opportunities in the pipeline.
– to continue attracting major investments to Ontario, it proposes allocating an additional $100 million to the Invest Ontario Fund, building on the $100 million announced in the 2023 Ontario Economic Outlook and Fiscal Review, and brings the fund total to $600 million.

Electric Vehicles and Batteries

The party states that:
– vehicle assembly and automotive parts production industries in Ontario directly support nearly 100,000 workers, as well as hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs throughout the auto supply chain, including over 700 parts firms as well as over 500 tool, die and mould makers.
– in Ontario, manufacturers are making new investments across the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain to help the province become a North American hub for building the cars of the future and create more good‐paying jobs. In 2023, Ontario was responsible for shipping 90.8 per cent of Canada’s international exports of automobiles and parts, with 96.4 per cent of these going to the United States. It is essential that the federal and Ontario governments work together to protect access to the market in the United States.
– since 2021 the province has attracted more than $28 billion in automotive and EV battery‐related investments from global automakers, parts suppliers, and EV battery and materials manufacturers, which are expected to create more than 12,000 new jobs.

Shipbuilding
In its 2024 Budget the party states that:
– Ontario’s shipbuilding and repair industry supports the movement of people and goods across the province, while promoting safety and security. In 2022, Ontario’s shipbuilding and boatbuilding industry contributed over $50 million to the economy.
– it proposes development of a grant program to help boost the economic competitiveness of the province’s shipbuilding industry.  It is engaging with the industry on the development of this new program to ensure it remains competitive, creates jobs and helps grow Ontario’s economy.

Mining and Resources
In its 2024 Budget the party states that:
– it is working with Indigenous communities to unlock the economic potential of the province’s critical minerals in the North, including in the Ring of Fire, as well as the forestry industry, supporting Indigenous, Northern and rural communities while ensuring that forests are managed sustainably.
– to support development in the Ring of Fire, it has allocated $1 billion to support critical infrastructure such as all-season roads, broadband connectivity and community supports, and will continue to support the Marten Falls, Webequie, and Northern Link road projects.
– it 2022 it launched a $5 million Critical Minerals Innovation Fund to support innovation and research to increase exploration, mining, development, production and processing in Ontario; and proposes investing an additional $15 million over three years from 2024-27.
– it created a $19.6 million Forest Biomass Program in May 2023 to develop benefits of new and under-utilized wood and mill by-products.  It now proposes to add $20 million per year through 2030.

Electrical Power Generation
In its 2024 Budget, the party states that:
– the province may need to double electricity capacity by 2050.  To meet that demand while keeping costs down, its plan includes investment in the future of nuclear power and new zero‐emissions electricity generation, storage and transmission lines.
– refurbishment of the Pickering, Darlington, and Bruce nuclear plants, will include gathering of funds through bond sales.
– Ontario Power Generation and other Ontario nuclear providers have signed major agreements valued at approximately $1 billion to export nuclear products and services to other countries, including Poland, Estonia and the Czech Republic.
– a $15 million Hydrogen Innovation Fund is being applied to 15 new projects that will help integrate hydrogen into the province’s electricity grid.
– Northern electricity transmission has been expanded by completion of the Est-West Tie project from Wawa to Thunder Bay in March 2022, and the anticipated completion of the Wataynikaneyap project to connect 16 remote first nations communities and transition then away from diesel electricity generation.

Advanced Computing
In its 2024 budget, the party states that:
– Ontario’s advanced research computing (ARC) facilities help ensure researchers have the resources they need to make new discoveries and commercialize innovations. It has allocated an additional $18 million over the next three years to support the ongoing operation and maintenance of Ontario’s ARC systems located across the province. In addition, it proposes investing $47.4 million for the infrastructure refresh of aging ARC systems at the University of Toronto (the Niagara Supercomputer) and University of Waterloo (the Graham Supercomputer).
– if further proposes to invest an additional $1 million per year starting in 2024–25 in Ontario’s Regional Innovation Centres (RICs). With this funding, the government will launch a new RIC in Barrie to further expand the regional benefits of innovation and economic growth.

Banking and Finance
In its 2024 budget, the party states that:
– to support equitable access to capital markets, it actively supports the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) in engaging Indigenous partners to identify opportunities for increased participation of Indigenous businesses and communities in capital markets.
– it continues to work with the OSC to establish a Long‐Term Asset Fund (LTAF) framework to enhance both institutional and retail investor access to investment opportunities in capital‐intensive assets such as infrastructure, natural resource projects, and other relatively less liquid assets.

Infrastructure
Prior to its current term in office, the party advocated:
– investing in expanded broadband internet access; and increasing local infrastructure funding.
– implementing two-way, all-day GO service, including expansions to Bowmanville, Kitchener and completing the Niagara GO Expansion, and supporting regional transit projects in places such as Ottawa, Hamilton, Mississauga/Brampton, Kitchener-Waterloo and London.
– transferring responsibility for subway infrastructure, including the building and maintenance of new and existing subway lines, from the City of Toronto to the Province; and adding $5 billion in new subway funding to the $9 billion already available to build the Sheppard Loop with Scarborough, the Relief Line, and the Yonge Extension while building future crosstown expansions underground; retaining municipal responsibility for day-to-day TTC operations, including labour relations, with the City of Toronto along with a guarantee that the City will continue to keep all revenue generated by the subway system.
– actively exploring potential for high-speed rail and highway projects including the potential six-laning of Highway 401 to the 416 between Toronto and Ottawa
– completing the environmental assessment for the GTA West Corridor, investing in increased safety on the 401 West and four-lane Highway 17 in eastern Ontario and Highway 3 in Southwestern Ontario.
– expanding natural gas distribution to rural communities by enabling private sector participation and use the up to $100 million in savings to invest in cellular and broadband expansion.

In its 2024 budget, the party proposes allocations of more than $190.2 billion over 10 years for highways, transit, broadband, housing-enabling and other infrastructure, including an initial $3 billion to its new Building Ontario Fund, to support building of critical infrastructure projects in priority areas across the province, including long-term care homes, energy infrastructure, affordable housing, and transportation; and that the fund is also exploring opportunities to support large-scale projects in the postsecondary student housing, long-term care, energy generation, and municipal infrastructure sectors.

The party further states that the $190.2 billion allocation includes:
– doubling its annual investment to nearly $2 billion over five years to fund asset management for 425 small, rural, and Northern communities, to help build and repair infrastructure such as roads, bridges, water and wastewater infrastructure.
– nearly $4 billion to provide access to high‐speed internet to every community across the province by the end of 2025. As of March 2024, more than 88,000 previously underserved premises now have access to high‐speed internet. It has provided an interactive map that provides information on the status of high‐speed internet projects in Ontario.
– new and improved highways and interchanges across the province, including the Banwell Road & E.C. Row Expressway interchange in Windsor, Highway 416 at Barnsdale Road in Ottawa, expansion of Highway 7 in York-Durham region and from Kitchener to Guelph, Highway 401 and Lauzon Parkway in Windsor, building Highway 413, the Bradford Bypass, and a number of highways in Northern Ontario.
– transit projects to support the provincial economy, alleviate gridlock, and connect people to jobs and housing, including:
*expansion of service on the Milton, Kitchener, Bowmanville, Niagara, Bloor, Bramalea, Aurora, and Stouffville lines;
* the Ontario, Scarborough, Yonge North, and Eglinton Crosstown West subway extensions;
* The Finch West, Eglinton Crosstown, Sheppard East, Hazel McCallion, and Hamilton Light Rail projects.