TORONTO — The 2024 Ontario Budget, entitled Building a Better Ontario, has revealed new investments in response to the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario’s (TIAO) pre-budget submission asks on workforce training, housing, infrastructure upgrades and craft-beverage tax reform.
Budget highlights include:
Labour
- Investing an additional $100 million in the Skills Development Fund Training Stream to address challenges in hiring, training and retaining workers
Housing
- Investing $1 billion for the new Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program to support core projects to enable housing for growing and developing communities
- Investing an additional $152 million over three years towards various supportive housing initiatives designed to support vulnerable people
Infrastructure
- Launching a new $200-million Community Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund to support new and revitalized sport, recreation and community facilities
- Allocating an initial $3 billion to the new Building Ontario Fund, a new infrastructure bank which will support the financing and building of critical infrastructure projects across the province
- Providing an additional $100 million to the Invest Ontario Fund to attract more strategic investments that promote job creation and innovation
- Allocating an additional $1.3 billion this year to improve high-speed Internet access across Ontario
Rural
- Consulting on a new Rural Economic Development Strategy that’ll inform additional policies to support the agriculture-and-food sector and rural Ontario
Tax Reforms
- Proposing to eliminate the 6.1 per-cent tax at onsite winery retail stores
Affordability Measures
- Proposing to extend the current temporary-gas tax and fuel-tax rate cuts, keeping the rates at nine-cents-per-litre until Dec. 31, 2024
- Proposing to modernize the auto-insurance system with reforms that’ll provide drivers with the option to opt out of certain coverage benefits to lower their premiums
The budget projects weak economic growth and a growing deficit as high-interest rates are expected to take a toll on Ontario’s economy this year. Inflation is projected to ease, slowing from 3.8 per cent in 2023 to 2.6 per cent in 2024, returning to the Bank of Canada’s target rate of two per cent in 2025. Projected risks to the economic outlook include elevated inflation, the path of the U.S. economy, geopolitical developments and rising trade tensions.
