By Pepper Parr
March 27th, 2026
BURLINGTON, ON
Nate Erskine Smith when he was in Burlington seeking the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party. Bonnie Crombie won that race. Erskine Smith went to to win the Beaches EAst York Street in Toronto and is currently a member of Parliament and is running for the provincial seat of Scarborough East York, which is he winds, gets him into Queen’s Park where he has made it clear he will work at becoming party leader and run against Doy Ford in the next provincial election. It’s a stretch.
Nate Erskine Smith opines on the 2026 Ford Budget saying they “released a budget yesterday that might well have been entitled “tired and short on ideas” instead of “a plan to protect Ontario”
It’s been too long since our last post, as I’ve had my head down focused on the provincial nomination race in Scarborough Southwest (help us here!) and serving constituents at the Danforth office. You can read this full Q&A with Beach Metro about next steps.
Need to toot my own horn on this one. I was the founding editor of what was the Ward 9 News and is now the Beach Metro.
The rundown on the Ontario Budget can be found below. We also just finished recording a piece on the notwithstanding clause (with the Bill 21 hearing before the Supreme Court earlier this week), which should be out soon. And the Uncommons podcast is returning after a hiatus, with guest Karina Gould.
Ontario Budget 2026: there is no plan.
It’s more apparent than ever that it’s past time for change.
The Ford government released a budget yesterday that might well have been entitled “tired and short on ideas” instead of “a plan to protect Ontario.” A series of re-re-announcements more than anything, mediocre past hits on repeat.
The temporary move to lift HST from new homes (in partnership with the feds) and the tax cut for small businesses will help a little for sure. Of course, it’s all deficit financed in a bloated and mostly directionless budget that would have the Tories screaming if any Liberal thought to introduce it.
Transit policy still reads like it’s scrawled on the back of a napkin, and the uncosted tunnel is top of that list. The One Fare Program extension is welcome, but it pales in comparison to the delays and mismanagement of the GO Expansion we need to connect our province. When we talk at the federal level about building with speed and scale, this isn’t it.
Public education is an embarrassing state of affairs, with total education sector funding now at the lowest percentage it’s been in thirty years. An entire generation is getting less than they need and deserve. Yes, there is some modest increase in funding for autism services, but it won’t go nearly far enough for the tens of thousands of kids on the waiting list. And while the government correctly identifies a real need – namely purchasing gaps for teachers – their proposed solution is more friendly to Staples than it is for the classroom.
Overall, funding for public education since 2018 hasn’t kept pace with inflation, and this year is no different. It is cuts by stealth and a clear signal that our kids don’t matter to this administration. They somehow find funding to put cops in our schools when we don’t have enough teachers.
And for higher education, the Ford government is moving forward with deep cuts to OSAP, pushing post-secondary opportunities away from the students in the greatest need and saddling those who can least afford it with more debt.
On housing, starts have fallen off a cliff, the Minister tells us he doesn’t even think about meeting the government’s own target – “I’m not a housing expert” is the refrain – and while the tax cut is decent short-term relief for some, there’s no support for municipalities to speed up timeline approvals, no move to use new technology, and no effort to address homelessness or support non-market housing.
On healthcare, expanded home care is welcome as is continued funding for building new hospitals. But there remains a gap from what the Ontario Hospital Association needs, and the Ford cuts to safe consumption sites will be measured in lives lost and increased emergency department visits the system can’t afford.
Hallway healthcare is worse than it has ever been, an issue Ford told us he’d fix back in 2018. If he can find “a few billion” for a Toronto convention centre no one asked for, the rest of Ontario should be asking why “a few billion” can’t be found for healthcare.
On public safety, the focus on expanded prison capacity is an absolute necessary. But so too is making the justice system function, and that’s a continued failing. It all comes on the heels of a cartoonishly failed attempt to silence protest, instead of focusing seriously on the effective enforcement of existing laws against harassment, intimidation, and hate.
On energy, the government is deficit financing untargeted consumer subsidies but leaving it entirely to the federal government to finance long-term clean energy investments that will create jobs and opportunity. We need a serious and strategic plan to drive economic opportunity through clean, affordable, and sovereign energy.
That’s just it, though. There is never a plan. Never has been a plan. Never will be a plan.
Ontario is overpriced and mismanaged, and there’s nothing in the budget that takes seriously the cost of living.
There is, though, a little change buried in the budget to our freedom of information laws. Yes, they are gutting transparency laws retroactively (retroactively!) because Ford doesn’t want the business of the province he’s conducted on his personal cell phone to be made public. After the Greenbelt and Skills Development scandals, why bother with transparency anyway?
We deserve better. It’s as simple as that.
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It was quite disturbing to see so many comments cheering Ford on on social media. Especially where healthcare is concerned. Ford has given away billions in lucrative building contracts. Just in 2025 Ford committed to another $60B over 10 yrs for new hospitals & spent 1.6B for 6 hospitals. But hospitals are of little value if they can’t be stocked with enough medical professionals, supplies & equipment.
We just heard of yet more hospitals laying off nurses bc they don’t have the money. This is not the first time in the last 8 yrs. How many ER’s have closed?
Ford is using inflexible funding formulas which has severe deleterious effects on hospitals in Northern Ontario and rural areas. For eg Sault Area Hosp saw a 15% cut to funding in 2025 forcing them to reduce emergency dept services to 11 hrs per day. Better hope if you have a chainsaw accident you can get there before the doors closed. Sault area hospitals had already seen around $30m in cuts from Ford’s previous budgets which saw them having to cut staff & close beds. The St Saint Marie Hosp was already at or over capacity 2 yrs ago which translates to increased medical errors & increased nosocomial infections as well as even more intensified hallway medicine which deprives patients of dignity in addition to lack of adequate care. Meanwhile he wants to build the Ring of Fire as well as other mining and development in northern Ontario yet taking funding away from healthcare where its already a challenge to get even basic care. Its hard to get a doctor all over but its worse when you live in sparsely populated areas where doctors don’t want to practice, you’re 200-500km to the nearest hospital & they’re only open part time bc Doug Ford refuses to fund them
Its true that building hospitals will increase the # of beds available. But again, that only helps if there are sufficient doctors & nurses to care for these patients. ON has the lowest # of beds per 100,000 ppl of any province. It has the lowest per capita spending of any province. As well, Ford has been bleeding the public healthcare system dry in favour of giving that money to private clinics at inflated, sometimes egregious prices. For private clinics get 4K for a knee surgery that only costs $1200 in the hospital.
There’s also the loss of LCBO revenue which is estimated to be $100 million. Prior to Ford the LCBO was making about $7.4 billion a year in net income, much of that going towards healthcare. But Ford cuts it up to give to Galen Weston, Sobeys & Metro, all primary customers of his Deco Labels company. A company that was supposed to be put in a blind trust. Instead that blind trust is operated by his wife & brother. Hardly arms length & I’d argue not blind. These companies heavily lobbied Ford. Them being major customers of his company made this a violation under the Lobbyist Registration Act yet no one took Ford to task on that.
And the FOI changes? It is absurd and appalling that voters can do nothing about this. Ford used his personal phone bc he thought it’d protect him from having to share those records. But the courts say nope, cough it up so he’s changing the law? WTH is the OPP or RCMP not investigating him?
People don’t realize the sweeping effects this could have. If you are in a car accident & suffer catastrophic injuries and its a road maintained by the MTO, you can sue them. They already fight tooth & nail to not give you any information. But now? They will legally be able to laugh in your face and say tough.
Sounds like the NDP.Lot’s of complaints but no plan .