The Ontario NDP platform was released today. It's more than 100 pages long.
PC leader, Doug Ford made one promise.
This will be Andrea Horwath's third election as Ontario's NDP leader. She's swinging for the fences. There will be pharmacare for everyone! Dental care for everyone! All of it free! Daycare will be free! Free! Or it might $12 a day? (Boo! That's not free!)
There will be 2,000 hospital beds. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Right away! Hurry hard! There's a plan for 65,000 affordable homes and $16-billion for fixing up the schools. Class sizes will be capped at 25 in kindergarten. Hate that standardized math test? They'll cancel it! The snow plow will be nationalized.
And there's lots and lots of strategy:
Autism strategy
Dementia strategy
Food and water strategy
Electoral reform strategy (sorry, I mean 'commission', electoral reform commission)
Elect the NDP and save 15% percent on auto insurance (again).
And everyone gets 3 weeks paid vacation!
How will the NDP pay for all of this?
They will raise taxes. The greedy rich will pay more. The greedy corporations will pay more. And there will be a new tax on fancy cars worth more than $90,000. That's assuming there are still any greedy rich people, running greedy corporations, who just happen to like driving around in fancy cars.
In other news, Doug Ford made one promise.
Anyone working for the minimum wage won't pay any provincial income tax. Zero. None. Notta. Zilch.
Is it deep? Not particularly. Nevertheless, it makes for an interesting contrast with the two leaders of the freebie forces.
(I would fail the standardized math test, so you should consult a professional.)
Let's assume Doug Ford is true to his word and keeps the minimum wage at $14/hr. A quick punch into an online tax calculator shows a tax savings of roughly $1159 per year. If the minimum wage increases to $15/hr as of January 1st of next year, the same worker would pay $1257 in provincial income tax.
Under the progressive plan, the worker pays $98 more in income tax at $15/hr, but has $1553 dollars more in after-tax income. (*All of this assumes a 40/hr work week.*)
Under the Ford plan, the worker pays no income tax and keeps the original $1159. So the debate, heck maybe the whole election, will rage over a grand sum of less than $400.
This is the second of five promised announcements from the Ford team. Perhaps the strategy is to lower expectations of what government can really do for you. He really can fire the CEO of Hydro One. And cutting taxes to zero for people who don't pay much tax to begin with, sounds easy enough.
Meantime, after three elections Andrea Horwath and the NDP haven't managed to save anyone a dime on auto insurance. Will voters really believe they can deliver thousands of new hospital beds, tens of thousands of affordable houses, fix up all the schools, offer cheap daycare and trips to the dentist?
We'll find out in 52 days.
HERE IS TODAY'S PREP:
Wynne's Anti-Ford website - The Real Doug Ford: https://realdougford.ca/
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