There will be no summer election in Ontario.
Both of this city’s MPPs say they’re happy that the minority-led Liberal government’s budget will pass.
Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath announced Tuesday that her party would be supporting the budget, giving the government enough votes to pass the budget released earlier this month. MPP Bill Mauro (Lib., Thunder Bay-Atikokan) said while an election was always a possibility, he’s not surprised the NDP announced its support.
“I really felt it would land in this position,” Mauro said. “They were pieces we were already doing to be quite frank.”
Those pieces include a decrease in auto insurance premiums. Mauro said he’s happy that this will give the minority government stability for a while. MPP Michael Gravelle (Lib., Thunder Bay-Superior North) agreed.
“It allows us to carry on with some really incredibly important work,” Gravelle said.
But Thunder Bay-Atikokan Progressive Conservative candidate Harold Wilson wasn’t so impressed. PC leader Tim Hudak had said he would not be supporting the budget.
"While attention has been focused on the budget, the clock has been ticking on many critical files for our region,” Wilson said.
“These include the looming impacts of the Endangered Species Act provisions - set to come into effect on July 1, the complete lack of urgency on any of the mining approvals in our area, the over 6 months and counting we have been awaiting the Ontario Power Authority's report on the options for our Thunder Bay Generating Station, and now the cuts to training for our local contact centres.
“There comes a point where there is no road left for kicking those cans."
