Tax reductions and tax reform; using our strengths
Open Ontario, our roadmap to the future

The issue facing Ontario last year was to decide whether to pull the covers over our head, and just wait until the global recession passed, or to look forward, be proactive and lead? Ontario chose the latter.

Going into the recession, Ontario had run three consecutive budget surpluses, and had begun a campaign to rebuild our province's public infrastructure. After inheriting a $5.6 billion structural deficit in 2003, the Province not only balanced the books without selling off public assets, but also rebuilt primary, secondary and post-secondary education. Health care once more became sustainable, and energy was again abundant. In fact, Ontario remains the one and only place in the whole world to have made a firm commitment to cease generating electricity by burning dirty coal.

Coming out of the recession successfully means looking forward to where the world is going, rather than backward to where we were years or decades ago.That is the essence of Ontario's recovery strategy, called Open Ontario. Here are the steps to date:

1. Make the investments in infrastructure and stimulus spending, and provide targeted assistance in specific areas to protect Ontario's key competitive advantages and prevent a collapse in employment. That's done. The auto sector is out of trouble, and its next-generation cars will be built in Ontario, by Ontarians. That's why Ontario went from a budget surplus to a budget deficit;
2. Make Ontario the most competitive place in North America to relocate a business, start a business and run a business and thus create and sustain jobs in Ontario. That's done. The province enacted bold cuts in personal and business taxes, enacted new benefits and abolished the job-killing, expensive, cumbersome and obsolete Provincial Sales Tax, replacing it with a modern, value-added consumption tax that will merge with the federal Goods and Services Tax;
3. Lay out a roadmap to the future for Ontarians and Ontario companies, with key sectors in which the Province either has, or can achieve, a sustainable competitive advantage with world-class expertise that will attract and sustain prosperity in a high-value, knowledge economy. That's done. See the Ontario Speech from the Throne, whose central theme is Open Ontario;
4. Add detail to Open Ontario with budgeted funds, time lines and priorities so that Ontarians and companies already here and planning to come to Ontario can make achievable plans and link to the one place in North America best positioned to lead economic recovery with a fully-diversified, 21st century economy.

That's the story of the Ontario plan. Here you will be able to find detail to help you understand where the Province is going, what the budget measures are, and what they mean to you. Check back from time to time, as more detail is posted here.

Information on Open Ontario and the Provincial Budget

Click on a link below. This budget analysis will often take you to the web site of the Ontario Ministry of Finance, and other sources, to get a perspective on the principal issues and highlights of the Ontario budget, and what they mean to us in western Mississauga.

Video Blog: Why to reject the Half the Story Tories

Ontario's comprehensive tax reform package is a combination of aggressive tax cuts, and a move to a single sales tax. Here;s why it is a good idea.

Highlights of the 2010-11 Ontario Budget

The third in a series of bold moves to make Ontario North America's premier place to do business and create jobs. Click above for the Ontario Budget Home Page.

How Ontario's tax reforms will benefit our seniors

Don't buy a line from someone who's only telling you half the story! Read the real deal and calculate the impact to you. Seniors are better off with Ontario's tax reform.

Ontario tax savings calculator: will you be better off than you were before?

The Ontario Ministry of Finance has a web-based tax calculator that will estimate your tax savings as a result of the 2009-10 proposed Budget measures.

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Thoughts, analysis and the real story on the things that affect us in Streetsville, Lisgar, Meadowvale and our western Mississauga neighbourhoods. To receive periodic updates, click to send an e-mail subscribing to the Group. Yahoo manages the Group. You can join and leave whenever you want.

Tax reform and the Ontario HST

The most talked-about part of last year's Ontario Budget was the move to a single, value-added sales tax. Let's explode the myths and explain the proposal.

• Q & A: What is a value-added sales tax, why replace the Retail Sales Tax, why now, and who else does this?
• What are the Made-in-Ontario aspects of the proposal, and what items will not be taxed?
• What does the Ontario Chamber of Commerce think?
• I'd like to read that study that predicts 591,000 net new jobs!
  Who wouldn't want to read that? It was done by Prof. Jack Mintz of the University of Calgary and is an independent assessment of the impact of Ontario's 2009 budget proposals. Click for the free download. It is a short read.
• I'm one of those people who likes the really detailed analysis. Anything else I can read to help me understand what Ontario is doing and why?
  You bet. Try this extensive annual study done by the Rotman School of Management every year. Click for the free download.
• What about the purchase and sale of homes, both new homes and resale homes?
• Message for realtors working in western Mississauga;
• Response to those who have e-mailed about real estate transactions.