November 6, 2020
Yesterday the Government of Ontario released “Ontario’s Action Plan: Protect, Support, Recover — the next phase of a comprehensive action plan to respond to the serious health and economic impacts of COVID-19”.
This 2020 Budget sets out a total of $45 billion in support over three years for health resources, financial programs and tax measures to support individuals, families and job creators impacted by the virus. The intent is to lay the groundwork for a robust long-term economic recovery for the province.
One item I note in particular is that the Employer Health Tax (EHT) exemption will increase from $490,000 to $1M and means about 90% of employers will pay no EHT.
For a perspective on the budget as a whole, I thought you might be interested in this summary and analysis from one of my clients, Sussex Strategies. Their President, Paul Pellegrini, has kindly allowed me to share it with you.
Sussex is an experienced and highly respected government relations firm that offers strategic and consulting services in municipal, provincial and federal affairs. I find their reports informative and insightful, and I hope you will also.
Within this email I have provided the preamble of the Sussex analysis with a link to their full 10 page document.
I have also provided a link to the full 2020 Budget.
Ontario Budget Analysis: What A Difference A Year Makes
Today, Ontario Finance Minister Rod Phillips delivered what is technically his first, and the Ford Government’s second, full Ontario Budget. Our clients and regular readers will know that the Ontario budget is typically delivered in March, in anticipation of the government’s fiscal year which is from April 1st to March 31st.
In normal times, the Minister of Finance would rise in the Legislature in November to deliver a Fall Economic Statement. While these have come to be known as “mini budgets” they are more correctly a report on government finances after half of the fiscal year has passed.
If you will allow us one Captain Obvious moment, 2020 is anything but a normal year. With this province, this country and most of the world firmly in the grip of COVID-19’s second wave, the budget schedule has been turned upside down this year.
You will recall that in March of this year, Finance Minister Phillips rose to table an economic update, a mini budget, which laid out the Ford government’s initial response to the pandemic. You’ll recall as well that Ontario essentially shut down in mid-March, and that Phillips’s mini budget was delivered some ten days later. The title of our analysis of that mini budget, “Extraordinary Times, Extraordinary Measures” is indicative of its contents.
Of note, the March document forecast a deficit for 2020/21 (the current fiscal year) of $20.5 billion. On that day we wrote that until that point, Ontario had 688 residents who had tested positive for COVID and nine deaths. The province had conducted 35,635 COVID tests up to that day. Given how small these numbers look by comparison today, it is truly difficult to believe that this was a little less than eight months ago. As of today, Ontario reports 80,690 cases, has performed over 5.1 million tests, and sadly 3,195 deaths.
Even before today, this budget had been framed by the Ford government as laying out the next phase of Ontario’s Action Plan to combat and recover from COVID-19.
In this way, today’s Budget has been clearly established as a pandemic-focused response and as a further articulation of the government’s plan that was first provided in the March 25 mini-budget (referred to as Ontario’s COVID-19 Action Plan).
Please click the button below to read our full report and analysis.
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