Ontario expects surplus next year

TORONTO Ontario plans to start posting budget surpluses in a year, leaning heavily on booming revenues to outweigh increased spending on health care — which includes boosts to hospitals, home care and the medical workforce.

Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy says his plan shows that it is possible to balance the budget while still investing in areas such as health care, housing and highways.

His budget shows that in the fiscal year starting next month, Ontario expects to run a $1.3-billion deficit, before eking out a small surplus of $200 million in 2024-25, followed by a $4.4-billion surplus the following fiscal year.

Finance officials say that progression is partly due to increasing revenues — Ontario expects to end this year with about $200 billion in revenue, more than $20 billion higher than it projected at this time last year — thanks to higher-than-expected levels of inflation and economic recovery.

On the expense side of the ledger, Ontario continues its infrastructure-heavy plans with more than $20 billion in highway, hospital and transit projects, while adding health spending such as more than half a billion in home care, $72 million to expand publicly funded procedures at private clinics and $80 million over three years to increase post-secondary nursing program enrolment.

There are few new affordability measures in the budget, but the government is expanding the Guaranteed Annual Income System, which provides payments to lowincome seniors.