Opposition reaction to Liberal budget

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It looks like an election will be held before the summer — after the minority Liberals tabled their budget Thursday afternoon. The Tories say they won’t support it — which means the NDP will determine if the government survives. And early reaction says it’s not looking good.

Premier Kathleen Wynne says she’ll give the New Democrats a week to decide whether to support the budget. It is a budget that has the government spending more of our money — and taking in less revenue. But the Liberals say they can still balance the books by 2017.

None of the opposition members wanted to talk about the budget. From the Tories, we heard election-style speeches. They’ve said already they won’t support this budget. They say they have a plan that will actually balance the budget by 2017 — and the sooner the election writ drops, the better.

The NDP, in an unheard of move, decided not to react at all. Leader Andrea Horwath was in budget lockup but declined to use the time set aside for her to talk to the media. She was also in the legislature when the budget was tabled. Here’s what happened when she left.

“We’re going to be talking to you in the morning. We’re going to be looking through the budget this evening and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

She’s holding a news conference Friday morning at 10am. Meanwhile Sid Ryan of the Ontario Federation of Labour said afterwards this is an NDP budget — the NDP should support it and worry about election later.

We also asked the finance minister about the transportation funding we’ve heard about — $29 billion over 10 years — split between the greater Toronto and Hamilton areas and the rest of the province. But the only line about future projects in Hamilton is a vague reference to rapid transit, and Charles Sousa just said, Hamilton will benefit.