More than 50 per cent of students from families that make less than $83,000 will receive non-repayable grants in excess of average tuition.
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While that may sound expensive for a government looking to erase a multi-billion dollar deficit, Sousa says folding several older grant and assitance programs into this new one will not cost taxpayers any more money.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) said the budget failed to address the issues in the corrections system that nearly led to a strike early this year: “For a long time now we’ve been telling the province that corrections needs an emergency injection of $100 million so we can start getting on top of the crisis in our institutions and in our probation and parole offices”, Warren (Smokey) Thomas said.
Students who’s parents make a total of $50 000 or less won’t be saddled with student loans and can attend post secondary schooling for free.
The budget will also detail already announced plans to let some grocery stores sell wine, which will get a new minimum price in the budget and could also be hit with a new tax.
Ontario universities are committed to working closely with the province to put the new financial aid measures for students in place, and to help identify and overcome obstacles to access for lower-income students.
The $30 fee for Drive Clean vehicle emissions tests will be eliminated, but not the tests themselves, as motorists have urged.
Opposition Leader Patrick Brown said the Liberals missed their chance to show Ontarians they were hearing their concerns about the high cost of living.
The debt, however, continues to swell to over $308 billion this year representing about $22,000 per Ontarian.
The government announced Wednesday that the cap-and-trade plan would add about 4.3 cents a litre to the price of gasoline and about $5 a month to natural gas home heating bills in the first year. Cigarettes will cost $3 more on a carton immediately and an inflationary increase every year starting in 2017.
Allan O’Dette, president of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, said he was pleased to see a path to balance, but didn’t see much of a plan to pay down the debt. Not even any sign of rebates for low-income families.
The deficit for the 2017 budget is projected to come in at $4.6 billion.
And NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says it will hurt seniors, and there was no warning for seniors budgeting on fixed incomes who will be facing huge new costs.
DEFICIT: The budget deficit for fiscal year 2015-16 is expected to come in at $5.7 billion, down from the last estimate of $7.5 billion.
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Ontario’s participation in the Western Climate Initiative with Quebec and California begins in 2017, and the auctioning of carbon allowances are expected to generate that $1.9 million annually starting in 2017-18.
