ontario economy

The year as we saw it: Ten charts that defined Ontario in 2016

Trish Hennessy Manisha Aggarwal-Schifellite

| December 22, 2016

The experts at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' Ontario office have been tracking economic developments in Ontario throughout the year. Some problems persist: the gender pay gap, social assistance poverty, the use of expensive payday loans as a last resort because traditional banks fail to serve low-income customers as well as they should.

Some things are shifting. For instance, in some pockets of Ontario, the employment rate has been on the rise. Oshawa, Windsor and Sudbury are the beneficiaries in that department. More attention needs to be paid, however, to job growth in London, Barrie, Guelph, St. Catharines, Kingston, Peterborough and Toronto.

Here are 10 charts that helped define the state of income, work, and the role of government in 2016.

Columnists

Slowly but surely, Kathleen Wynne reveals herself to be a standard issue Liberal

I still think she's salvageable, said someone normally NDP but who's given up on provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath. She meant Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. It's hard to recall the hopes Wynne once inspired and how fresh she seemed. Let's refresh our memories.

When she ran for Liberal leadership in 2013, she'd be asked, portentously, if she really thought someone like her could succeed in Ontario politics. What you mean, she'd say brightly, is: Can a lesbian from Toronto become premier? The way she put it made you think: Perhaps. It was bracing and confident.

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Ontario Politics hydro one Kathleen Wynne ontario economy hydro privatization

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Time for Ontario to allow municipalities to defend their tax base

Hugh Mackenzie

| August 5, 2015

Chip in to keep stories like these coming.

An important article in the Globe and Mail highlights a significant issue facing local governments across Ontario.

As major commercial and industrial property owners win tax assessment appeals, wriggling out of the responsibility of paying municipal taxes, it is reaping devastating impacts on local finances.

Premier Kathleen Wynne endorsing Adam Vaughn in 2014

Ontario Budget 2015: Kicks the can on fixing Ontario's real problems

Sheila Block Kaylie Tiessen

| April 24, 2015

Budget 2015 may be big on rhetoric, but it doesn't deliver on the promises for strengthening public services that Premier Wynne was elected on.

It is, instead, a procrastination budget; one that skillfully avoids a conversation about Ontario's chronic revenue problem and shifts the cost of underinvestment in public services on to private households.

The province trumpets that it will reduce the deficit to $8.5 billion this fiscal year to $4.8 billon next year and reach a zero deficit by 2017-18.

Ontario Budget 2015: Throwing everything but infrastructure under the bus

Hugh Mackenzie

| April 24, 2015

If you just read the words, and didn't look at the numbers, Ontario's 2015 budget is a magical integration of the government's high-profile infrastructure and pension initiatives with the need to maintain the public services that Ontarians count on.

The budget devotes page after page to trumpeting the government's commitments to elementary and secondary education, post-secondary education, child care, health and poverty reduction at the same time as it highlights investments in infrastructure and the continued development of the Ontario Registered Pension Plan (ORPP). The budget even mentions homelessness as an issue that concerns the government.

Women's roller coaster ride in Ontario's labour market

Kaylie Tiessen

| March 6, 2015

In anticipation of International Women's Day (this Sunday), let's look at how women are faring in Ontario's labour market.

Here's a shocker: in terms of Ontario's employment rate, women have made no gains since the year 2000. Women began the century with an employment rate of 57.4 per cent (12 month moving average, December 2000) and they began 2015 with an employment rate of 57.2 per cent -- slightly less than the December 2000 number.

And in between those years, women have been on a roller coaster ride when it comes to jobs.

Ontario kicked off 2015 with lacklustre job and wage trends

Kaylie Tiessen

| February 9, 2015

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Ontario started the New Year with very little change in its jobs numbers: the employment rate is holding steady but there is a shift in part-time job growth.

Despite the bad news on the job front in January -- massive Target Canada layoffs and the closing of Wrigley's chewing gum factory in Toronto -- Ontario created a 1,300 jobs last month. The layoffs will be hitting the labour market numbers in the months to come.

The devil is in the details: Ontario lost 23,200 full-time jobs and gained 24,400 part-time jobs.

Ontario's economic update: Pieced together with string and masking tape

Sheila Block

| November 18, 2014

Yesterday, Ontario released its Fall Economic Update and Fiscal Review.

Both revenues and economic growth are slightly lower than expected. But, the government is sticking to its deficit reduction plan; and holding it together with string and masking tape.

It is hoping that an increased focus on collecting taxes that are owed and shifting around reserve funds will do the trick this year. Meeting its timeline to reduce the deficit to zero will rely on program spending growth at less than 1 per cent per year until 2017-18.

Austerity 2.0: Kinder and gentler, but a cut is still a cut

Kaylie Tiessen

| October 2, 2014

Here in Ontario, we have glimpsed the future, and it looks a lot like Austerity 2.0.

That's what Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne's mandate letters set out for her cabinet last week.

On the one hand, the premier is instructing her ministers to invest -- in poverty reduction, transit and transportation improvements, and (hopefully) job creation.

But, with those same letters, ministers are being told to hold the line on spending. Even after two years of her predecessor's austerity cuts, Wynne has instructed her cabinet to find $250 to $500 million in savings every year until 2017-18 -- her target to eliminate the province's fiscal deficit.

So, Austerity 2.0.

Canada's job numbers: Ontario is driving the trends

Kaylie Tiessen

| September 8, 2014

Many analysts agree that last week's job numbers from Statistics Canada are dismal. Canada created only 81,000 new jobs between August 2013 and August 2014. That's the smallest August over August change since 1990.

While taking a look at the Canada-wide numbers is important to understanding the economic health of the country, zoning in on the provincial and regional levels can be very informative, showing that different parts of the country are driving different trends.

Ontario, for example, posted a disappointing 14,000-job gain between August 2013 and 2014 -- that's an average of 1,160 jobs per month. For the province with the largest population, and one that used to be considered by many to be the economic engine of Canada, that's something to worry about.

ontario economy

Slowly but surely, Kathleen Wynne reveals herself to be a standard issue Liberal

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