Rae says Provincial Budget is Building a Better Ontario

[Queen’s Park]— Today, Ontario’s Minister of Finance, the Honourable Peter Bethlenfalvy, introduced the provincial budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year.

“Our provincial government continues to build Ontario, including rural Ontario,” said Matthew Rae, Member of Provincial Parliament for Perth-Wellington. “Budget 2024 takes a prudent approach to making critical investments in healthcare, infrastructure, and keeping costs down.”

“In the face of global economic uncertainty and high interest rates that continue to put pressure on Ontario families, our government is taking a responsible approach by investing to rebuild Ontario’s economy without raising taxes,” said Minister Bethlenfalvy. “As we invest in key public services and infrastructure, including new roads, highways and the largest public transit expansion in North America, we refuse to offload the costs onto hardworking Ontario families or municipalities at a time when they’re counting on us to keep costs down.”

In Budget 2024, the provincial government is spending $85 billion in healthcare and $37.6 billion in education, respectively.

New and existing primary care teams will receive $546 million over three years to expand the provision of primary care to an additional 600,000 people in Ontario.

Small and rural hospitals will receive $50 million over three years to support the stabilization of healthcare capacity in rural and northern communities. An additional $500 million over 10 years will be made available to support small hospital projects and community health programs.

“The province continues to support our rural healthcare system,” Rae said. “Budget 2024 will support our primary care teams and local hospitals to continue providing the highest quality of care.”

The budget also includes investments for a new medical school at York University, which will build the first medical school in Canada focused primarily on training family doctors.

An investment of $128 million over three years will support the training of 2,000 registered nurses and 1,000 registered practical nurses. Additionally, Ontario will invest $2 billion over three years to support increases in compensation for personal support workers, nurses, and other frontline care providers.

Hospitals will receive an additional $965 million in 2024-25, including on average four per cent increase in total base funding to ensure high quality healthcare.

Budget 2024 also supports our most vulnerable. Ontario is investing an additional $152 million over the next three years to support individuals facing unstable housing conditions, and mental health and addictions challenges.

Locally, Stonehenge Therapeutic Community and Guelph Community Health Centre will receive $9 million over three years to support individuals with complex, high acuity mental health and substance use issues.

Municipalities can also expect greater support in Budget 2024 as the province continues to pursue its goal of building 1.5 million homes.

The Municipal Housing Infrastructure program and Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund will make over $1.8 billion available to our municipal partners for the purpose of building water and wastewater infrastructure, roads, and other municipal infrastructure that is required to build housing.

“Our government’s historic investment of $1.8 billion in housing enabling infrastructure will help us and our municipal partners unlock millions of homes across Ontario,” said Rae. “I hope our federal partners will join us in building the critical infrastructure that we need to get homes built.”

The province is also opening the Community Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund, which will provide $200 million to municipalities to support growth and the needs of their community.

This year’s budget also launches a new Ontario Transit Investment Fund to provide annual funding of $5 million to deliver local and intercommunity transportation projects in unserved and underserved areas in rural Ontario. The funding builds on the Community Transportation Grant Program.

Budget 2024 builds on last year’s budget affordability measures.

Expansion of the Guaranteed Annual Income System (GAINS) program, starting in July 2024, will make 100,000 additional seniors eligible for the program; the change will also adjust the benefit annually to inflation.

The budget also extends the Gas Tax cut until December 2024, saving Ontario families $320 on average since 2022.

“Our government is focused on ensuring that we keep costs down for families,” said Rae. “I will continue to advocate for ways to improve affordability for rural Ontario in particular.”

The Ontario budget presents a prudent and flexible fiscal plan, while working towards a balanced budget.

The Ontario budget for 2024 can be found here.