Ontario Liberal budget passes with NDP’s help
Posted June 11, 2013 12:02 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
As expected the minority Liberal government’s budget has passed at Queen’s Park with the NDP’s support, avoiding an early election.
The vote was 64-36
“With the support of the NDP, we have passed a budget,” Premier Kathleen Wynne said on Tuesday afternoon, adding that the budget will introduce positive changes to the people of Ontario and reiterating her commitments, including funding infrastructure across the province. “I am relieved that we are here.”
But it wasn’t before the Progressive Conservatives, who have opposed the budget even before it was tabled May 2, made a last appeal to the NDP earlier Tuesday to vote against the budget, which was a confidence vote. If the budget doesn’t pass, it would have triggered a spring or summer election.
During question period, PC Leader Tim Hudak urged the NDP to abandon their promise to vote for the budget and defeat it.
The NDP should not prop up a government that deleted emails to try to cover up the cost of cancelling two GTA gas plants which have cost taxpayers at least $585 million, more than double what the Liberals claimed, he said.
But NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said a vote against the budget would kill the justice committee hearings probing the two cancelled gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga.
She also said she was supporting the budget because the premier had met two of her post-budget demands, including an independent financial accountability office that she believes will help prevent future scandals like the gas plants fiasco.
The budget already met many NDP demands, including a 15-per-cent reduction in auto insurance premiums, a five-day guarantee for home care service and job creation for youths.
The legislature will sit again on Sept. 9.
With files from The Canadian Press
