A Plan to Protect Ontario:
Highlights of the 2025 Budget

Providing Relief and Support for Workers and Businesses

• Supporting businesses that invest in buildings, machinery and equipment that are used for manufacturing or processing in Ontario by proposing to enhance and expand the Ontario Made Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit. The proposed changes would temporarily increase the tax credit rate for Canadian-controlled private corporations (CCPCs) from 10 per cent to 15 per cent and temporarily expand eligibility to a 15 per cent non-refundable version of the credit to non-CCPCs, including public corporations, that make eligible investments in the province. These proposed changes would help businesses lower their costs by providing an additional $1.3 billion in support over the next three years.
• Creating the Protecting Ontario Account, a fund of up to $5 billion designed to provide businesses with critical support to protect jobs, transform businesses and grow strategic sectors of the economy that are facing significant tariff-related business disruptions. This fund will provide immediate liquidity relief as an emergency backstop for Ontario businesses that have exhausted available funding.
• Deferring select provincially administered taxes for six months from April 1, 2025, to October 1, 2025, to help businesses weather the economic turmoil caused by the impact of U.S. tariffs. This measure will provide about 80,000 businesses and job creators approximately $9 billion worth of cash flow they need to keep workers employed.
• Helping businesses weather economic uncertainty through the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) rebates and premium rate reductions. Starting in 2025, WSIB rates have been reduced to the lowest in half a century, which will save Ontario businesses about $150 million annually. In addition, WSIB is distributing rebates of $4 billion in surplus funds to safe employers in 2025, reflecting the government’s commitment to fostering a robust and resilient business environment.
• Protecting businesses that rely on a unified rail network for transporting goods and raw materials to customers by proposing a new temporary tax credit to support Ontario’s shortline railway industry. The Ontario Shortline Railway Investment Tax Credit would be a 50 per cent refundable corporate income tax credit available for qualifying shortline railways on eligible track maintenance and rehabilitation expenditures in Ontario. This investment tax credit would provide Ontario’s shortline railway industry with an estimated $23 million in income tax support over three years.
• Investing an additional $15 million to renew the Life Sciences Innovation Fund for three years beginning in 2025–26, to help support life sciences companies as they transform innovative and capital-intensive investments from conceptual stages to commercialization.
• Introducing the Ontario Grape Support Program to help grape farmers and wineries by increasing the number of Ontario grapes in wine bottles. The program will provide up to $35 million in annual support to eligible wineries beginning in 2025–26 and until 2029–30, with total program funding of $175 million. This program is anticipated to double, on average, the percentage of Ontario grapes in blended wine.
• Extending and enhancing the VQA Wine Support Program to provide additional support to VQA wine producers, expanding total investment to $84 million in annual support, with total program funding of $420 million over the next five years.

Unleashing Ontario’s Economy

• Investing $500 million to create the new Critical Minerals Processing Fund that will help unleash the potential of the province’s mineral sector by attracting investments in critical mineral processing capacity here at home, to help ensure that minerals mined in Ontario will be processed in Ontario, by Ontario workers.
• Tripling the total amount of loan guarantees through the Indigenous Opportunities Financing Program (formerly the Aboriginal Loan Guarantee Program) to $3 billion and expanding eligibility beyond the electricity sector to include eligible projects in energy, pipelines, mining including critical minerals, resource development and other sectors, to help support investments by Indigenous communities in Ontario’s growth.
• Investing $70 million over four years in the Indigenous Participation Fund (formerly the Aboriginal Participation Fund), starting in 2025–26. This investment will support Indigenous communities and organizations in areas of high mineral activity, to improve capacity for participation in the regulatory processes related to mineral exploration and mine development.
• Providing $10 million over three years to create new scholarship opportunities for First Nations postsecondary students interested in pursuing careers in resource development, equipping them with access to the tools and training to succeed as leaders and innovators.
• Doubling down on the province’s efforts to build, including the most ambitious capital plan in Ontario’s history, with planned investments over the next 10 years totalling over $200 billion, including over $33 billion in 2025–26. Highlights of the 10-year capital plan include nearly $30 billion to support the planning and construction of highway expansion and rehabilitation projects, approximately $61 billion for public transit, approximately $56 billion in health infrastructure and investing over $30 billion to build more schools and child care spaces.
• Proposing to provide up to a further $5 billion in funding to the Building Ontario Fund. With increased access to funding, the Fund will be well positioned to deliver on its mandate to invest in priority area projects that contribute to the continued growth and prosperity of Ontario.
• Allocating an additional $600 million to the Invest Ontario Fund to provide Invest Ontario with greater stability in executing on its mandate of job creation and investment attraction. To date, Invest Ontario has announced over $7.5 billion in investments, which are expected to create almost 9,500 jobs.
• Investing an additional $90 million in venture capital (VC) funding through Venture Ontario, which includes $50 million to Ontario-based VC funds focused on technologies that support national defence and related technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity, and $40 million to VC funds that will help life sciences companies and biomanufacturers innovate and grow.
• Investing $50 million over three years starting in 2025–26 to create the Ontario Together Trade Fund. The fund will focus on expanding interprovincial trade by supporting investments in infrastructure, equipment and processes to enhance competitiveness in the face of U.S. tariffs.
• Investing $200 million in the new Ontario Shipbuilding Grant Program that will provide non-repayable grants to provincial shipbuilders for projects that support the industry’s competitiveness, business growth and long-term capacity. The program will directly support skills training, the purchase of machinery and equipment, and infrastructure improvements. Ontario shipbuilders have an important role to play to bolster Canada’s shipbuilding capabilities as well as supporting Canada in meeting its NATO defence spending commitments.
• Launching a new round of the Hydrogen Innovation Fund, investing $30 million to unlock hydrogen’s potential to drive economic growth, create jobs and support the province’s position as a leader in the clean energy economy.
• Extending the investment in the Ontario Automotive Modernization Program (O-AMP) and the Ontario Vehicle Innovation Network (OVIN) through a total investment of $85 million. The OVIN program supports regional technology development sites, research and development partnerships, and incubator projects for automotive and mobility small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The O-AMP is designed to support Ontario’s SME automotive parts suppliers upgrade outdated equipment and adopt new tools and technologies to innovate their product lines and continue to modernize their processes.

Supporting Families, Workers and Communities

• Proposing to make the province’s gasoline tax and fuel tax cuts permanent. This measure would save households, on average, about $115 per year.
• Ensuring skilled workers across the province have the training they need to enter rewarding careers in priority sectors, by investing an additional $1 billion over the next three years in the Skills Development Fund Capital and Training Streams, bringing the total funding commitment to $2.5 billion. These investments will help organizations deliver better training programs and help upgrade and build new training centres for skilled workers across the province.
• Helping eligible job seekers through the Better Jobs Ontario program, which provides financial support to cover expenses like tuition, transportation and child care. The government is investing an additional $50 million in 2025–26 to support vocational and skills training that will enable more people to transition into in-demand jobs.
• Investing $20 million in 2025–26 to mobilize new training and support centres, formerly known as action centres, providing immediate transition supports for more laid-off workers, including those impacted by U.S. tariffs.
• Creating the new Trade-Impacted Communities Program that will provide up to $40 million in grants, starting in 2025–26, which are flexible and tailored to the needs of individual communities and local industries. This funding will support projects that help communities respond to trade disruptions, as well as large-scale strategic initiatives that enable and transform key sectors and industrial clusters to help businesses grow, find new markets and investments, and diversify their supply chains.

Delivering Better Services

• Investing an additional $400 million in the Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program and Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund in the immediate term, to address high demand for these existing programs to help build the local infrastructure needed to make way for new homes.
• Investing approximately $56 billion over the next 10 years in health infrastructure, including over $43 billion in capital grants. This includes investing $103 million in additional planning grants and support for over 50 major hospital projects across the province that will deliver approximately 3,000 new hospital beds to enhance access to quality care and build a connected, people-first health care system. Highlighted projects include new and additional planning grants for:
  • Campbellford Memorial Hospital for planning to replace the current hospital and create a “rural hub.”
  • Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital to plan the construction of new hospital facilities.
  • Grand River Hospital and St. Mary’s General Hospital to support the planning of a greenfield project for new facilities and redevelop health care infrastructure.
  • The Brantford and Willett sites of Brant Community Healthcare System to advance the planning of a greenfield site to build infrastructure to address capacity issues, aging infrastructure and increase the number of inpatient rooms.
  • Southlake Regional Health Centre to plan for the creation of a distributed health network and renovate existing facilities.
  • Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre for the planning of a new South Campus in Innisfil.
  • Lake of the Woods District Hospital to support the advanced planning of a replacement hospital.
• Investing up to $280 million over two years to support the expansion of Integrated Community Health Service Centres. These centres will deliver MRI and CT scans, endoscopy procedures and orthopedic surgeries in the community setting, reducing backlogs in surgical and diagnostic services and making it easier and faster for people to connect to publicly funded surgeries and procedures.
• Investing more than $235 million in 2025–26 to establish and expand up to 80 additional primary care teams across the province, connecting 300,000 more people to primary care this year. This is part of Ontario’s investment of up to $2.1 billion in the Primary Care Action Plan, which will close the gap for approximately two million people in need of primary care by 2029.
• Proposing the Ontario Fertility Treatment Tax Credit to help with the financial burden of fertility treatments, effective January 1, 2025. This new refundable tax credit would be built on Ontario’s existing medical expense tax credit and would provide support of 25 per cent of eligible fertility treatment expenses up to $20,000, for a maximum credit of $5,000 per year.
• Investing an additional $207 million over three years starting in 2025–26 in the Ontario Research Fund – Research Infrastructure (ORF-RI), to provide institutions, such as Ontario universities, colleges and research hospitals, with funding to acquire infrastructure and engage in global research and development. Since 2018–19, Ontario’s investment of $560 million in ORF-RI has leveraged $930 million and helped train over 73,800 highly qualified personnel.
• Investing more than $30 billion over the next 10 years, including approximately $23 billion in capital grants, to support new and redeveloped school and child care projects. As part of the government’s ongoing efforts to improve and modernize existing schools, Ontario is investing close to $2 billion in the 2025–26 school year to repair and maintain schools, which will foster safe, healthy, accessible and supportive learning environments.
• Helping to fight gridlock by permanently removing tolls from the provincially owned Highway 407 East, which is expected to save daily commuters an estimated $7,200 annually.
• Taking the next steps to advance planning and feasibility studies for GO 2.0, the government’s proposal to deliver the next generation of passenger rail service for the Greater Golden Horseshoe. GO 2.0 will build on existing investments to GO Transit by delivering all-day, two-way service to Kitchener and Milton, building new GO stations across the region and advancing planning to unlock potential new rail corridors through midtown Toronto, Etobicoke, York Region and Bolton.
• Investing $57 million for two new H-135 helicopters to support the Niagara Regional Police Service and the Windsor Police Service with increased patrols, security and enforcement at key entry points at the U.S. border.