Highlights of the 2023 Economic Outlook and Fiscal Review: Building a Strong Ontario Together

Building Ontario

• Launching the Ontario Infrastructure Bank, a new arms-length, board-governed agency responsible for attracting public-sector pension plans and other trusted institutional investors to participate in large-scale critical infrastructure projects, with proposed initial funding of $3 billion from the government.
• Strengthening critical mineral exploration through a proposed additional $12 million per year in tax credit support to the critical minerals mining industry. The government would expand eligibility of the Ontario Focused Flow-Through Share Tax Credit to include critical minerals that qualify for the federal Critical Mineral Exploration Tax credit, starting with the 2023 tax year.
• Protecting communities and unlocking new housing opportunities with $200 million over three years in a new Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund, for the repair, rehabilitation and expansion of a variety of municipal water infrastructure projects.
• Providing an additional $100 million to the Invest Ontario Fund, for a total of $500 million, which will enable Invest Ontario, the government’s investment attraction agency, to help attract more leading companies to the province, further support businesses already here and create good-paying jobs in communities across the province.
• Implementing the Ontario Made Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit to help Ontario’s manufacturers lower their costs, innovate and become more competitive through an estimated $780 million in income tax support over three years.
• Strengthening Ontario’s position as a global leader across the electric vehicle (EV) supply chain by attracting over $26 billion in the last three years in transformative automotive and EV battery-related investments from global automakers, parts suppliers and EV battery and materials manufacturers.
• Building on Ontario’s clean energy advantage and meeting growing electricity demand today and into the future by supporting the refurbishments of Darlington and Bruce nuclear generating stations and extension of Pickering nuclear generating station to 2026, supporting the building of North America’s first grid-scale Small Modular Reactor (SMR), starting pre-development work for a large-scale nuclear station, planning strategic new transmission lines and procuring long-duration storage projects.
• Committing a historic $185 billion over 10 years, including $20.7 billion in 2023–24, toward Ontario’s Plan to Build, the most ambitious capital plan in Ontario’s history to build highways, roads, transit, hospitals, long-term care homes, schools, child care spaces, broadband and other critical infrastructure.
• Investing more than $48 billion over 10 years in health infrastructure, supporting more than 50 hospital projects that would add 3,000 new beds over 10 years to improve access to reliable, quality care.
• Making planned investments that total a historic $6.4 billion since 2019 to build more than 30,000 new long-term care beds and upgrade more than 28,000 existing beds across the province by 2028.
• Investing $22 billion over 10 years to build new schools, add child care spaces and modernize school infrastructure. For the 2023–24 school year, 21 new schools and additions have opened, creating over 7,000 new student spaces, including six French-language school projects.
• Making progress towards creating 86,000 new, high‐quality, affordable child care spaces by 2026. By the end of 2023, over 23,000 new spaces will be created, including over 1,500 new licensed child care spaces in schools.

Working for You

• Putting money back in people’s pockets by extending the current gas and fuel tax rate cuts through to June 30, 2024. This proposed change, along with the gas and fuel tax rate cuts already in place, would save households $260 on average since the cuts were first implemented in July 2022.
• Encouraging construction of new purpose-built rental housing by taking steps to remove the full eight per cent provincial portion of the Ontario Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) on qualifying projects. Together with federal-level enhancements, this would remove the full 13 per cent HST on qualifying new rental buildings. The Province welcomes the federal government’s decision to listen to Ontario’s long-standing call for GST relief for new purpose-built rental housing.
• Expanding provincial eligibility for breast cancer screening to increase access for more than 305,000 additional people. Beginning in fall 2024, people ages 40 to 49 will be able to self-refer for a mammogram through the Ontario Breast Screening Program. Earlier detection can mean less invasive treatment and better outcomes.
• Consulting on a permanent framework for target benefit pension plans, which provide a monthly income for workers in their retirement. A permanent framework would support the sustainability of these pension plans and help provide workers, including those in the skilled trades, with retirement security.
• Supporting skills development and training, with more than $1 billion invested over three years in the Skilled Trades Strategy, as well as $860 million in the Training Stream and $224 million in the Capital Stream of the Skills Development Fund.
• Welcoming more skilled immigrants to Ontario by investing $25 million over three years in the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program through the 2023 Budget, expanding the Ontario Bridge Training program with a $3 million investment in 2023–24 to help skilled newcomers start working in their trained fields faster, and removing Canadian work experience requirements for certain regulated professions to make it easier for newcomers to work in the professions they trained for.
• Eliminating double fares for most local transit when using GO Transit services and increasing PRESTO discounts for youth and postsecondary students, all while providing riders with more options and convenient ways to pay.
• Increasing the general minimum wage to $16.55 per hour, a 6.8 per cent pay raise to help workers and their families keep up with rising costs.
• Putting $550 on average back in the pockets of over 200,000 low- to moderate-income senior families with eligible medical expenses this year, including expenses that support aging at home, through the Ontario Seniors Care at Home Tax Credit.
• Building at least 1.5 million homes by 2031 through targeted incentives to municipalities, including the Building Faster Fund, strong mayor powers and the Streamline Development Approval Fund; and by making housing more attainable by increasing the Non-Resident Speculation Tax rate.
• Accelerating the government's commitment of $1 billion over three years to increase home care funding in 2023–24 up to $569 million. This includes more than $370 million to support home and community care workers through rate increases and investments to hire more care workers. This funding will also support the expansion of home care and community care programs such as adult day programs, meal services, transportation and assisted living services.
• Building on the historic investment of $3.8 billion over 10 years for mental health and addictions services as part of the Roadmap to Wellness: A Plan to Build Ontario’s Mental Health and Addictions System, by investing an additional $425 million over three years, starting in 2023–24. These investments support the stabilization and expansion of existing mental health and addictions services, including the implementation of innovative solutions, and improved access to mental health and addictions services and programs.
• Investing $72 million to reduce wait times by offering more surgeries at community surgical and diagnostic centres. As of June 2023, the waitlist for surgeries has been reduced by more than 25,000 from the peak in March 2022.
• Making it easier for people to access treatment for common ailments closer to home by allowing pharmacists to prescribe medications for the treatment of 19 common ailments.