The Ontario government fails to live up to its human rights commitments in Budget 2024

Combing through the 2024 Ontario Budget, you may feel like you’re missing something. Was there an insert that fell out? Can that happen to a PDF?

As usual, the first few pages are a message from the Minister of Finance, summarizing the government’s key messages on what the reader has in store. Though described in heart-pounding, breathless prose, this year’s overview feels unusually thin and recycled: The Ford government is building things at roughly the same rate as the Wynne government, businesses of all kinds are indeed doing business, many people are still getting trained, and the government is taking bold action to keep taxes the same. Also, we’re buying four helicopters. Rest assured, says Minister Bethlenfalvy, the government is “doing what’s needed to get it done.”

Of course, doing almost nothing is not the worst-case scenario. The Ford government has largely steered clear of overt spending cuts, preferring instead the slow erosion of social programs through inflation and population growth. But at a time when our public systems continue to fail so many of us, we at Maytree would prefer to see some ambition and urgency to reimagine and rebuild these systems so that they respect, protect, and fulfill the economic and social rights of every Ontarian.

In that spirit, let’s dive in.

1. The big picture

With sluggish growth leading to lower revenues, the government is projecting deficits for the next two years and a return to surpluses just in time for the 2026 election. If it can hold spending below what is required to keep up with inflation and population growth, the government calculates that even modest economic growth will raise revenues and eliminate the deficit. Projections for the next three years also include some extra padding in the form of healthy and growing contingency funds and reserves, though well below the levels seen in recent years.

There’s fiscal room to invest

The media, egged on by the opposition parties, is fixated with the “ballooning” deficit of $9.8 billion. This is a predictable distraction. Although the deficit has indeed tripled in size, it is still only about 4 per cent of total spending and adds only a percentage point to Ontario’s net debt to GDP this year. The bottom line is, if the government wanted to invest more to support those in greatest need, the fiscal room is there.

Real per-capita program spending is trending down

Coverage of the budget as the most expensive in Ontario history also misses the mark. The government’s expenditures have not kept up with inflation, let alone population growth, and the government plans to increase program spending by an average of only 2.4 per cent per year through 2026-27. It is highly unlikely this can be sustained without further deterioration in public services. For example, average annual spending increases to the health budget have exceeded 6 per cent over the past five years, but the government proposes to hold that growth rate to an average of only 2 per cent over the next three years.

Source: Compiled by author

2. Children, Community and Social Services

Time has not been kind to the budget for the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services. Although nominal spending has inched up, inflation-adjusted spending has fallen each year under this government, and real per-capita spending has fallen even faster. If you consider the sector’s share of the spending pie, in 2018-19 it made up 11.6 per cent of total program expenses. This will fall to just 9.6 per cent by 2026-27. It would take an additional investment of $4 billion to bring social services back to its 2018-19 share.  

A welcome investment in community services 

On the upside, strong sector advocacy through actions like the #5tosurvive campaign seem to have borne fruit. The Budget includes $310 million over three years to help with operational costs for community organizations that support vulnerable populations, including children in care and those with special needs, people with developmental disabilities, and people who have experienced gender‐based violence and human trafficking. It is not immediately clear how far this funding will go when spread across the province.  

ODSP to increase with inflation; OW still frozen 

The Budget confirms that the Ontario Disability Support Program will see an annual inflation adjustment to core allowances thanks to the government’s previous decision to index it. While any increases should be applauded, ODSP rates are still far too low. Having a significant disability means a life of poverty for hundreds of thousands of Ontarians. 

Meanwhile, the slow withering of Ontario Works is set to continue. Coming into this Budget, inflation adjusted rates were already $200 below where the Harris government left them in 1995. There is no end in sight to the government’s misguided tough love approach.  

A small boost for low-income seniors and more funding for the Ontario Autism Program 

After temporarily doubling Guaranteed Annual Income System (GAINS) payments in 2023, the government is finally indexing the benefit to inflation beginning in July 2024. The maximum benefit will increase to $87 per month for eligible single seniors and to $174 per month for couples. The annual private income eligibility threshold will increase from $1,992 to $4,176 for single seniors, and from $3,984 to $8,352 for couples. The government previously signalled this change in last year’s budget.  

The Budget also commits an additional $120 million to the Ontario Autism Program this year. The investment was welcomed by Autism Ontario, which highlighted the need for an accompanying plan to build professional capacity in the province to deliver core autism services.

3. Housing 

There has been no shortage of action on the housing file over the past few years, but the flurry of new legislation, policies, and programs are overwhelmingly focused on building more housing, much of it unaffordable to low-income Ontarians. The 2024 Budget continues this trend, investing nearly $2 billion in new municipal infrastructure funding meant to enable more housing.  

Conversely, those hoping for stricter rent controls, fixes to the Landlord and Tenant Board, or enforcement of the Residential Tenancies Act will have to wait at least another year.  

That said, at least one new initiative focuses on purpose-built rental. The Budget proposes to allow – but not compel – municipalities to create a new lower property tax rate for purpose-built rentals.  

Modular housing gets a confusing shout-out 

Without concrete plans or funding commitments, the Budget notes the government’s intention to “embrace” modular construction. The government will use this type of housing to create both affordable and attainable housing (still no official definition of the latter). 

Affordable and attainable housing comes up a few times in the Budget, but there are no other specifics given. Meanwhile, Ontario may have to forgo $357 million in federal funding after reaching only 6 per cent of its 2024-25 affordable housing target. 

Modest investments in supportive housing 

The Budget includes a modest but notable investment in supportive housing of $152 million over three years. The funding will go towards “a suite of supportive housing initiatives designed to bolster support for vulnerable populations,” including rent supplements for 10,679 supportive housing units and maintaining 1,137 units with expiring operating agreements. Ontario lacks a coordinated and funded supportive housing system, so renewed government attention in this area is welcome. And there may be more to come, as the government says it “will be considering new projects, starting next fiscal year, to build more supportive housing units across the province.”  

Rhetoric meets reality 

Minister Bethlenfalvy insists that housing has been the government’s top priority for years, hence its audacious goal of building an average of 150,000 new homes each year for ten years. However, just as he did last year, he finds himself in the awkward position of admitting in his own budget that the reality does not match the rhetoric. The Budget predicts housing starts will fall slightly this year before recovering to 95,800 by 2027. That’s below the 96,000 housing starts Ontario saw in 2022. Moreover, the Budget shows affordability getting worse, with province-wide average home resale prices projected to increase in each of the next four years to about $1 million by 2027.  

It’s clear that we are not building ourselves out of this problem any time soon. An honest survey of our housing issues would suggest we pay more attention to rapidly housing people in need and to keeping low-income families in their homes.  

Verdict 

The Ontario government is not doing enough “to get it done.” Despite Ontario’s great wealth and prosperity, our systems continue to generate poverty and housing precarity.   

It has been almost 50 years since Canada, with the support of Ontario and all the other provinces, signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This committed all levels of government to take steps, to the maximum of available resources, toward the fulfillment of each person’s human right to adequate housing and an adequate standard of living.  

Budget 2024 fails to live up to this commitment.