THUNDER BAY — The Ford government budget dropped its 2025 budget Thursday, earning a mixed bag of reactions from local leaders.
Area MPPs are split down party lines, with Thunder Bay—Atikokan's Kevin Holland praising his government's fiscal plan while Thunder Bay—Superior North's NDP representative Lise Vaugeois was unimpressed.
“It's a really good budget,” said Holland.
He highlighted a $6 million increase to roads funding and $2.5 million increase for the forest sector strategy as particularly relevant to the north of the province.
Holland said the budget includes single-source procurement for the Alston plant for the new subway line in Toronto and investments with Frontier Lithium to bring the lithium processing here into Thunder Bay.
He also noted that the province is maintaining a $10 million fund for Northern universities and colleges.
Projecting a $14.6 billion deficit, the budget includes some big spending aimed at supporting business in face of U.S. tariffs.
“I was going through the budget document and a number of pages turned over where there's opportunity for businesses that are going to help us through some of the challenges we're facing as a result of the tariffs and duties being imposed from the U.S. government,” said Holland.
Vaugeois, on the other hand, is more critical. She said a lot of money was budgeted to prop up businesses, but “there are no strings attached to that money.”
“We know that trickle-down economics doesn't work, so there's no guarantee that that money is going to be spent on workers,” said Vaugeois.
Those business supports include $4 billion in "surplus funds" from Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and WSIB rate reductions "to the lowest in half a century" which the government said will save businesses about $150 million a year.
A previously announced tariff relief package that included $2 billion in WSIB rebates was met with a lot of criticism from the Thunder Bay District Injured Workers Support Group, who said that money should have gone to injured workers.
There isn't much in the budget for the north, said Vaugeois.
Rick Dumas, president of the Northern Ontario Municipal Association, said the budget reflects what the Ford government set out to do: protect Ontario.
“I believe that it reflects the needs we need and of course we'll continue to work with the Ontario government in regards to all aspects,” said Dumas, who ran unsuccessfully against Vaugeois for the Conservatives earlier this year.
However, Dumas also said he would like to see a little more investment in education, particularly Confederation College, which has satellite campuses across the region.
“We know the government's working closely with the union trades and they're providing some of those courses through the college or directly in their own facilities. That's great. We need to go back to the educational sector right in grade 11 and 12 and get those youths in our communities to say: 'I'm going in to be a mechanic or an engineer or a carpenter or a plumber,'” said Dumas
“Because I think what we seem to do, and this is not reflective of any government, just over time we all seem to be happy and then a whole bunch of people retire and there's nobody filling in the gap. But we've let the gap go too far, so we need to keep that continuation of training.”
He said there is always going to be a transition in the workforce, and the government needs to reinforce the public schools with more technical training to ensure all aspects of the sector have the people they need, such as mechanics, construction, carpenters, and truck drivers.
Vaugeois said money going into skill trades is needed, but the increased funding in training may leave gaps in other sectors.
“I'm waiting for the time when we have surplus labour in skilled trades and nothing in anything else. And then you have a lot of people in skilled trades saying, hey, I was supposed to get this fabulous job and it was great for 10 years, and oops, now there's a surplus and wages have gone way down,” said Vaugeois.
Dumas mentioned he was happy to see an increase in the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund; however, Vaugeois said that while the fund looks like it is getting an increase, but hasn’t reached what the fund was once getting.
“That's not actually an increase because a few years ago it was $650 million. Then it was cut to $500 million. Now it's up to $600 million, and what that tells me is that there's not going to be any help for our communities who are actually struggling with some really basic infrastructure needs,” said Vaugeois.
Holland said there are a lot of investments coming in to support businesses, organizations, the healthcare sector, and transportation.
“The opportunity within this budget it's going to build on the $1.3 billion in investment we've seen coming into Thunder Bay over the last 2.5 years. So, this budget is a really good budget for Northwestern Ontario and opportunities for us to build on those successes that we've already realized. I’m gotta say that this is a pretty exciting budget for Northwestern Ontario,” said Holland.
