Ontario budget date announced at DMZ

By Laura Woodward

Finance Minister Charles Sousa announced at the Ryerson Digital Media Zone (DMZ) that the Ontario 2015 budget will be available April 23.

Despite Ontario’s $10.9 b‎illion deficit in 2014-15 the budget is planned to achieve a balance in 2017-18. Sousa said this will be done by continuing to beat the deficit targets.

“We’ve exceeded our targets year over year for the past five years, and in fact, we’ve exceeded our target this year by 1.6 billion dollars,” he said.

The budget will outline new investments that support Ontario’s four-part economic plan that focuses on investing in innovation, infrastructure and pension plans.

“In the coming weeks, we will outline our plan to stimulate our economy, create jobs, eliminate our deficit and invest in the future of Ontario…we are strengthening Ontario’s economy to grow over the long term,” he said.

The advisory report led by TD CEO Ed Clark — which plans to monetize provincial assets, including the sales of beer in grocery stores — will be released prior to the budget, according to Sousa.

“I will be making Ed Clark’s report and our team will have that report available and detailed prior to the budget. It is such a large component of what we’re going to have in our budget, but I’ll release more details of that in the coming days,” Sousa said.