FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – MPP Mike Schreiner released the following statement in response to the government’s 2025 budget.
“This budget ignores the fact that people are going to be hurt by the trade war. We need a budget that actually invests in people.
Instead of stepping up with solutions that put everyday people first, the government offers more of the same – underfunded care, broken housing promises, and wasteful highway projects.
This government is waving the white flag on meeting their target of 1.5 million homes. Housing starts are at historic lows, and housing prices are at record highs. But the government continues to say no to building homes people can afford and falls way short of the funding municipalities need for infrastructure to unlock housing.
Rather than invest in affordable and supportive housing with wraparound supports, this government is doubling down on criminalizing homelessness, which costs more in dollars and fails to care for our most vulnerable neighbours.
At the same time, critical systems of care are under strain. Healthcare spending isn’t even keeping pace with inflation, leaving hospitals understaffed and frontline workers overwhelmed. The budget fails to invest in our children by failing to reverse cuts to education and to reduce wait times for mental healthcare.
This approach is only deepening Ontario’s crisis of caring.
Yet the government is plowing ahead with $30 billion for highways—including wasteful, sprawl-inducing mega-projects like the tunnel under the 401 and Highway 413, which will pave over farmland and natural areas while doing little to relieve gridlock.
If this government is serious about tariff-proofing Ontario by investing in people, it must:
-Make meaningful investments in systems of care – ones that will keep hospitals and emergency rooms open, support fair wages for public healthcare workers, and make mental health and addictions care accessible to the people that need them;
-Boost housing starts and create good construction jobs by building more types of homes that people can afford in the places people want to live.
-Build Ontario’s energy independence with low-cost renewables – instead of doubling down on expensive, polluting American gas.
-Protect our farmland and the places we love, to support our $50 billion food and farming economy, defend our food sovereignty, and protect us from climate-fueled unsafe weather.