Our previous New Normal Election Analysis pieces examined seniors’ care, income inequality, good jobs, mental health, and anti-racism, and housing. Below we look at provincial party commitments on components included under our Thriving in the City framework, which identifies the goods, resources, and services a Greater Toronto Area (GTA) family with young children needs to live a healthy life. These include: food and nutrition, transportation, shelter, health care affordability, social inclusion and participation, education, and child care.
Food and Nutrition
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
The proposed budget does not include any new measures to address access to food and/or the rising cost of food in Ontario.
Green Party of Ontario
The Green Party platform promises to address urban food deserts by providing start-up funding for community-owned healthy food markets and increasing support for existing community gardens through land gifts and organizational support.
To increase access to local, healthy food for students, they would introduce a nutritious school lunch program for the public school system. They would also seek to improve the grocery retailer code of conduct.
Ontario New Democratic Party (ONDP)
The Ontario NDP propose to create an ‘Ontario Food Strategy’ that would prioritize access to locally-sourced food by working with farmers and supporting agriculture jobs. They would also regulate the price of gas to lower the cost of shipping food.
Additional commitments include supporting the ‘Grocery Code of Conduct’ and legislating fair negotiations between food retailers and suppliers to improve transparency and help drive down food prices in the long term.
Ontario Liberal Party (OLP)
The Ontario Liberal Party platform mentions that they will ‘work to tackle food costs in the long-term’ through supporting fairer negotiations between food retailers and suppliers – but no additional details are provided.
The OLP also propose to expand the Student Nutrition Program to ensure every K-12 student who needs one is provided a free breakfast.
Shelter
Wellesley Institute previously prepared an in-depth platform analysis on housing, which you can read here.
Transportation
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
The proposed budget includes very large funding increases towards roads and highways, but it is not clear how this would make driving significantly more affordable.
The proposed budget also reiterates previous commitments to spend $61 billion on public transit over the next ten years. No measures towards increasing affordability are provided.
The budget also indicates continued investment into the supply chain for electric vehicles, but do not propose any incentives targeted towards promoting their usage.
To address short-term gas prices, the government introduced legislation to cut the gas tax for six months by 5.7 cents per litre and the fuel tax by 5.3 cents per litre, starting July 1.
Green Party of Ontario
The Green Party platform includes measures for improving and expanding regional public transit. They would restore the 50 per cent provincial cost-share for transit operations to help reduce fare increases.
To help support transit users, the platform proposes to immediately cut transit fares in half for at least three months across all provincial transit systems.
The Greens propose to increase demand for low-emission vehicles by providing cash incentives of up to $10,000 for fully electric vehicles and $1000 for e-bikes or used electric vehicles, which would represent savings for families that can afford them at the new cost.
Ontario New Democratic Party (ONDP)
The ONDP promise to support municipal public transit systems by restoring the 50 per cent provincial cost-share, which would go towards improving service and reducing fares. They also propose to move forward on fare integration and eventually implement a two-hour, flat rate fare across municipal transit in the GTHA.
To help incentivize Ontarians to buy zero emission vehicles, the ONDP would offer cash incentives of up to $10,000, excluding luxury vehicles.
Ontario Liberal Party (OLP)
To make transit more affordable in the short-term, the OLP propose to cut the cost of transit fares across all provincial public transit systems to $1 per ride and reduce costs of monthly passes to $40 until January 2024. They would also reduce costs for people transferring between transit systems by integrating fares between services in the GTHA.
To help increase access to electric vehicles, the OLP propose to provide up to $8000 in rebates on electric vehicles that retail for up to $65,000 and $1,500 for charging equipment.
Health Care Affordability
Green Party of Ontario
The Green Party platform commits to prioritising prevention in Ontario’s healthcare system by partnering with the federal government to implement a universal dental care program and a universal pharmacare program.
Ontario New Democratic Party (ONDP)
A lead commitment in the ONDP’s platform on healthcare is their dental care proposal. They pledge to expand and speed up the promised federal dental program and provide free or low-cost dental care for all low to middle-income families. Under the ONDP plan, households earning less than $90,000 would pay nothing, while those with incomes between $90,000 and $200,000 would co-pay based on a sliding scale (but no more than half the bill). The ONDP promise that low-income households would be covered by 2023 and those in the middle-income range would be covered within two years.
In addition to dental care, the ONDP also promise to begin ‘working immediately’ on a universal pharmacare program, which would complement existing public drug programs.
Ontario Liberal Party (OLP)
The OLP platform promises to ensure that all Ontarians without an employer benefits plan have access to prescription drug coverage through a provincial portable benefits plan. Although no eligibility details are provided, they indicate that those not captured by either options would receive drug coverage through OHIP+ or the Ontario Drug Benefit program.
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
There are no new commitments regarding provincial coverage of healthcare costs.
Social Participation and Inclusion
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
The proposed budget includes the temporary Staycation Tax Credit for 2022, a refundable personal income tax credit that allows Ontario residents to claim up to 20 per cent of eligible 2022 accommodation expenses, including for stays at Ontario hotels, cottages, or campgrounds.
Green Party of Ontario
We did not find Green commitments that would make social participation more affordable.
Ontario New Democratic Party (ONDP)
The ONDP commit to making province-wide high-speed internet available across Northern Ontario by or before 2025.
Ontario Liberal Party (OLP)
The OLP platform proposes to remove the provincial 8 per cent HST on prepared meals under $20, including meals at restaurants and to-go counters at grocery stores.
The OLP commits to ensuring that everyone in Ontario has access to affordable and high-speed internet by 2025. They propose to require the Ontario government and the broader public sector to donate any surplus devices to communities and families in need.
Education
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
We did not find proposals in the recent budget that would make education more affordable.
Green Party of Ontario
The Greens would reverse cuts to Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) and cover loans to grants for low and middle-income students and eliminate interest charges on student debt.
Ontario New Democratic Party (ONDP)
The ONDP would reverse cuts to OSAP, convert OSAP loans into grants to help students graduate debt-free, and retroactively wipe out student loan interest.
Ontario Liberal Party (OLP)
The OLP would reverse cuts to OSAP and doubling its funding, including waiving post-secondary application fees for those in need. They also promise to keep tuition costs from rising and eliminate interest on student loans.
Child Care
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
Ontario announced the Canada-Ontario early years and child care agreement on March 28, with fee reductions beginning in April 2022 and retroactive rebates going to parents between May and December. The proposed budget indicates that fees will be reduced by 50 per cent on average by the end of 2022.
The proposed budget also states the government will create 86,000 new childcare spaces, including approximately 15,000 spaces created since 2019, although no time frame is provided and no workforce development strategy has been released, making this potentially very challenging to achieve.
Green Party of Ontario
The Green Party platform commits to working with the federal government to ensure continued funding for universal access to $10-a-day childcare.
Ontario New Democratic Party (ONDP)
The ONDP platform promises to ‘explore ways’ in which they can work with the federal government to speed up the implementation of universal $10-a-day childcare. They also commit to reducing fees for before and after school childcare.
Ontario Liberal Party (OLP)
The OLP platform commits to implementing universal $10-a-day childcare. They also promise to deliver $10-a-day before and after school care by September 2022. The OLP would provide families with childcare discounts retroactive to January 1, 2022.
Other key childcare proposals include: topping-up the 18 month parental leave so parents can stay at home longer without having their Employment Insurance benefits reduced; expand not-for-profit childcare options for parents working non-traditional hours; and bolstering the Ontario Childcare Access and Relief from Expenses (CARE) tax credit by 50 per cent to allow families to choose caregivers outside of licensed childcare.
Conclusion
The Wellesley Institute’s Thriving in the City work examines what, based on evidence of need, families in the GTA need to Thrive – to live a healthy, happy life. All levels of government, and all parties, should have this as their target. When we come together as a society to form a government, we expect that government to be there for us, and share our goals – and the desire to live healthy, meaningful lives is the human condition.
Unfortunately, no party has articulated this kind of vision, and we hope this will change for the next election. However, each party has at least some measures that they believe would improve the ability of Ontarians to Thrive. In particular, we note that the OLP transit platform, the ONDP dental proposal, the post-secondary proposals from all three parties, and the broad OLP child care proposal would make significant progress towards ensuring everyone in Ontario has what they need for health.
But our next government, and future opposition parties, should provide Ontarians with their assessment of the current baseline, what minimum income and other supports they need to Thrive, and a detailed strategy on how they intend to achieve that target.
We can build a stronger, more resilient society in which each of us can Thrive.