Ontario budget highlights include public sector employee pay freeze

Here are the highlights of the Ontario budget introduced today by Finance Minister Dwight Duncan:

–  total of 110.2 (b) billion dollars in deficit spending over eight years until the books are balanced in 2017-18, including this year’s record 21.3 (b) billion dollar deficit.

– immediate pay freeze for most public sector employees who are not in a union or professional association for two years.

– MPP pay freeze started last year is extended for another two years.

– no funding for salary increases for civil servants and others in the public sector, including nurses and teachers, for two years once their current collective agreements expire. Municipal employees, including police, are exempt.

– the Liberals will hold the growth in total spending to an average of 2.5 per cent for next two years; falls to 1.9 per cent beyond 2012-13.

– $310-million dollar increase in post secondary education funding to pay for 20-thousand new college and university spaces this fall, and increase foreign students by 50 per cent.

– a $150-million a year program to reduce electricity prices by 25 per cent for large industrial users in the north.

– a new northern Ontario energy credit of up to $200 for low-to middle-income families; singles would get up to $130.

– $45-million to help economic development projects in the north such as the so-called Ring of Fire chromite deposit near James Bay.

– $63.5-million to replace federal child care funding that is ending.

– total spending in 2010-11 hits $126-billion — an increase of $8.2-billion over the fiscal year that ends March 31st.

– economic growth projected at 2.7 per cent this year, 3.2 per cent in 2011, 3.2 per cent in 2012 and three per cent in 2013.

– unemployment rate to rise to 9.1 per cent this year from nine per cent last year; projected to fall to 8.5 per cent in 2011, 7.6 per cent in 2012 and 6.8 per cent in 2013.

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