Ontario maintains infrastructure spending

The Ontario government’s budget tabled on Tuesday, March 29 was welcomed by the construction industry for its continued support of funding for infrastructure.

The government promised to continue spending around $12.8 billion in 2011-2012, and $35 billion in total over the next three years.  This is approximately the same amount as it has spent in the past two years on building highways, transit, hospitals, school buildings and other civic works. 

Corporate income tax will continue to scale down, from 14% in July 2010 to 11.5% this July.

The provincial Finance Minister, Dwight Duncan, said the Liberal government is focusing on eliminating a $16.7 billion deficit that has grown since the recession.

Two days after the budget was delivered, the province announced that it would pay $8.2 billion towards a new underground transit line in Toronto, supporting the platform of new city mayor Rob Ford. The LRT under Eglinton Avenue will be the longest all-new subterranean transit line constructed in Canada since the 1960s according to the Globe and Mail. It will traverse 18 kilometres across the city, from Black Creek Drive in the west to Kennedy Road in Scarborough in the east. From there an existing LRT line to Scarborough Town Centre will be replaced, a project that is also to be paid for by the province as part of the $8.2 billion.