Economy
Look back just a couple of decades in Ontario and you might be shocked by what you find: optimism, hope, and fearlessness in the face of the future.
Ontario was a place that was growing better by the day. Together, we had the confidence to invest in ourselves and the courage to build a better Ontario for every single Ontarian. We were building better hospitals, better schools, better highways, and better communities.
We can recapture that spirit. We can keep on building a better Ontario. We are wealthier than we’ve ever been, and we can afford to invest more in ourselves.
Just look at the basic economics: our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2017 was $830 billion, bigger than it has ever been before. And that’s not just because our population is bigger than ever. If every Ontarian had an equal share of our wealth, we’d each be wealthier than ever.
But there’s the problem: our wealth isn’t being shared equally.
More than two-thirds of Ontarians want to invest in public services instead of privatizing them.
More than two-thirds of Ontarians want to invest in public services instead of privatizing them.
Statistics from the Royal Bank tell this story clearly: In Ontario, we’re investing less of our GDP in public services than almost every other province. And it’s the same story in sector after sector:
• We invest less in our community college students than any other province.
• We invest less per inmate in our jails.
• We invest less per person in long-term care.
If we’re not investing our wealth in ourselves, where is that wealth going?
Over the past generation, rampant privatization and significant corporate tax cuts have shifted billions of dollars of our common wealth to the wealthy few:
• We lose $1.4 billion if corporate taxes are cut by just one per cent.
• We’re losing at least $3 billion a decade because of hydro privatization.
• We lost $8 billion over a decade because of P3 hospitals and highways.
• We lost $1 billion in a single shot because of the gas plant scandal.
Through privatization and corporate tax cuts, we’re giving up billions and billions of dollars. We don’t have to. We can invest that money instead in ourselves and our communities.
Platform Priorities:
End privatization: Government must call a moratorium on privatization and establish a fully public and accountable process to evaluate all proposals to privatize, contract-out, or outsource public services and assets. This process must include a credible and independent cost-benefit analysis of the proposal, and give members of the public and the affected workers meaningful input into the final decision.
Restore corporate taxes to at least 15%.
