Budget

Friday April 27, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday April 27, 2012

Moody’s debt-rating downgrade sour news for Ontario

A community group pushing the city to take another look at its ward boundaries has successfully collected the 500 Just two days after the McGuinty Liberals’ first minority government budget passed a crucial vote, one of the world’s major credit rating agencies downgraded Ontario, citing the province’s swollen debt burden and tough economic times ahead.

Moody’s Investors Service’s decision Thursday to downgrade Ontario followed a stern warning and dimmer outlook issued one day earlier from Standard & Poor, another influential credit rating agency.

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan acknowledged that the move by Moody’s was serious but he also attempted to play down the sour financial news. Moody’s downgrade could make Ontario’s government bonds less attractive to investors and could also make it more expensive to borrow money at a time when the province’s debt is mounting.

Progressive Conservative finance critic Peter Shurman suggested the rating drop was “catastrophic for Ontario,” but Mr. Duncan said he expects the effect will be minimal.

“We’re still in the top echelons of credit ratings,” Mr. Duncan noted. “It [the downgrade] reminds us that it’s important that we continue to meet our targets or we risk paying more money to bond holders instead of for schools and for health care.”

Moody’s downgrade of the province’s debt rating to Aa2 with a stable outlook from Aa1 with a negative outlook brings the agency’s score more in line with S&P and DBRS, which both downgraded Ontario by one notch in the fall of 2009. DBRS, which also weighed in Thursday on Ontario’s fiscal state, decided to maintain its “stable” outlook on its debt rating for Canada’s largest province, saying the government’s increased focus on controlling spending was “an encouraging step in the right direction.” (Source: Globe & Mail) 

 

Friday April 20, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday April 20, 2012

Ontario NDP drops push to cut HST

The Ontario NDP is withdrawing a push to exempt home heating bills from the harmonized sales tax, in a significant concession that ratchets up the pressure on the governing Liberals ahead of a budget vote that could trigger a provincial election.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said in a Thursday morning news conference that it’s become clear in recent days that Premier Dalton McGuinty “strongly disagrees” with an HST exemption for home heating.

“Now, I hope that over the term of this minority government, I can convince the premier that he’s wrong. But I have to be frank. I just don’t think that that’s going to happen within the next couple of days,” she said.

“And for that reason, I am letting it be known today that we don’t expect the HST to come off home heating in this budget.”

Horwath said that a number of other NDP demands tabled in the leadup to the vote on the provincial budget next Tuesday — including a tax increase for the wealthiest in the province — remain in play.

The ball is now in McGuinty’s court, she said.

“Mr. McGuinty has to make a choice. Is he going to stand with the mom that needs a child-care space for her son or daughter? Or is he going to stand with the millionaire? Is he going to stand with health care improvements, or with millionaires?”

She criticized both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives for being inflexible when it comes to the budget. The Progressive Conservatives announced before the budget was tabled that they would not be supporting it. (Source: CBC News) 

 

Tuesday April 17, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday April 17, 2012

NDP Leader Horwath would rather negotiate on budget than force election

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says she’d still rather try to negotiate with the Liberal government than force another election.

Horwath told the party’s Hamilton convention she knows some people want her to reject the budget if the Liberals won’t make changes, even if it means defeating the minority Liberals and forcing an election.

She says the NDP has made it clear that it wants a freeze on welfare rates lifted and a new surtax on incomes over 500-thousand dollars – and she says the ball is now in Premier Dalton McGuinty’s court.

The Liberals say the New Democrats are under heavy union pressure to force an expensive and unnecessary election.

But while some union leaders like Ontario Federation of Labour president Sid Ryan are pushing for an election over the public sector wage freeze, others are urging Horwath to keep talking with the Liberals.

Federal NDP Leader Tom Mulcair will address the Ontario delegates before their convention wraps up today. (Source: Globe & Mail) 

 

Thursday April 5, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday April 5, 2012

NDP isn’t drawing a line in the budgetary sand

For a fleeting moment earlier this week, it appeared Andrea Horwath had finally set a make-or-break condition for supporting Dwight Duncan’s budget.

With Tuesday’s call to apply an extra tax to anyone making more than $500,000 per year, the Ontario NDP Leader served up the kind of attention-grabber from which it’s difficult to back away – and that, if rejected by Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals, could make for an NDP-friendly wedge issue during a provincial election.

And yet, no sooner had Ms. Horwath gone public with her demand than she was once again reminding journalists that she has no intention of drawing “lines in the sand.” The implication was that she’ll be satisfied if the Liberals instead grant a few other, less showy concessions from the list of requests she’s slowly rolling out.

It was the latest signal that, against the advice of some of the more hawkish members of her party, Ms. Horwath is determined to play the long game.

If she were primarily concerned with the here and now, Ms. Horwath would be leaning toward helping Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives bring down Mr. McGuinty’s minority government.

Doing so would carry less risk for the NDP than for the Tories, who are still going through a behind-the-scenes shakeup that has them a long way from election readiness, and have struggled to convincingly explain why they’d force an election over a right-leaning budget. By contrast, the New Democrats could rely on the same campaign team they did a few months ago, and make a coherent case against austerity measures – from social-assistance freezes to the shutdown of northern transit services – that run contrary to their policies and principles. (Source: Globe & Mail)