What Doug Ford means for your wallet

Here’s a rundown of Doug Ford and the PC Ontario’s campaign promises around work and taxes, hydro, healthcare, tuition and child care you should be aware of:

Work and taxes

Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario

• Ford, who has pledged to scrap the Liberals’ planned minimum wage hike from $14 to $15 next year, would introduce an income tax credit for workers earning minimum wage so that anyone making less than $28,000 a year would pay no income tax.
• Cut corporate tax rates from 11.5 to 10.5 per cent in an effort to attract new businesses to Ontario
• Use a tax rebate program to cover up to $6,750 for childcare costs—lower-income families would receive 75 per cent of child-care costs back
• Mused he could abolish the 15 per cent non-resident buyer tax on real estate introduced last year
• Cut middle-class income taxes by 20 per cent for those earning $42,960 to $85,923 annually, but Ford unclear how it will be paid for
• Cut gasoline taxes by 10 cents a litre by ending the 4.3 cent a litre carbon tax along with a 5.7-cent reduction in the province’s fuel tax
• Cut the small business tax rate from 3.5 per cent to 3.2 per cent

Hydro

Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario

•  Cut hydro bills by 12 per cent, on top of the Liberals’ 25 per cent promised cut and return all Hydro One dividends to Ontario families
• Use “retroactive legislation” to prevent executives and board members from receiving large payouts if their jobs are terminated

Sources: CBC News; Toronto Star, Doug Ford’s official Twitter account; Global News

Healthcare

Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario

The Ontario PCs haven’t yet released a comprehensive platform to replace former leader Patrick Brown’s “People’s Guarantee.” But on the health care front, Ford has promised to:

• Add 15,000 new long-term care beds over the next five years and 30,000 new beds over the next 10 years
• Put an end to “hallway medicine” (when hospital overcrowding leads to patients being treated outside of more private rooms), although Ford hasn’t provided specifics as to how
• Spend $1.9 billion over the next decade on mental health and addiction support
• Encourage more doctors to move to northern Ontario by cutting their provincial taxesdown to as low as zero per cent
• Opposed to planned safe-injection sites for Ontario, particularly “in neighbourhoods”
• Invest $98 million a year to provide dental care to low-income seniors

Sources: Ontario PC, Global News, Toronto Star, CityNews

Drugs and Alcohol

Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario

• Expand sales of beer, wine, cider and coolers into corner stores
• Lower the minimum price that beer can be sold for to $1 (plus deposit) per bottle, the level it was at prior to 2008.

Sources: CBC News, Maclean’s

Education

Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario

Nothing that would hit your wallet

Child care

Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario

• Families could select from a variety of options, including licensed and independent childcare spaces, babysitters, nannies, after-school recreational programs, “and a range of other options, as long as it enables the parent to go back to work,” for children under 15 years old
• Families would receive an Ontario Childcare Rebate of up to 75 per cent of their childcare expenses, up to $6,750 per child until age six. For kids between six and 15, families would receive up to $3,750. It would work on a sliding scale, with families earning less than $34,800 qualifying for the maximum and declining to a rebate of 26 per cent of childcare costs for families with an income of $155,095 or higher. It would cost $389 million a year
• New plan would be implemented Jan. 1, 2019

Source: The Canadian Press