Ontario Liberal leader to pledge tax cut on home heating fuels

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie will unveil a major tax cut plan that includes lifting the provincial levy on home heating fuels, the Star has learned.

 

Taking aim at Premier Doug Ford’s $200 tax rebate cheque scheme, a senior Liberal campaign source said “people need something lasting and not just a one-time handout.”

 

The Liberals’ “More For You” tax package proposal will be released Tuesday as Ford is considering an early election next spring instead of waiting until the scheduled vote in June 2026.

 

“She’s going to deliver tax cuts that Doug Ford promised but didn’t deliver and that the New Democrats and Greens would never touch,” added the source, speaking confidentially Monday in order to discuss the plan before its release.

 

While Ford pledged a middle-class income tax cut in the 2018 campaign that brought him to power, he has not followed through.

However, his Progressive Conservative government has eliminated licence plate renewal fees, tolls on Highways 412 and 418, and has a temporary cut on gasoline taxes.

 

“The whole plan will cost less than Doug Ford’s cheques but bring … more relief on an annual basis,” said the Liberal source.

 

The $200 cheques, which will cost the provincial treasury $3 billion as the province runs a deficit of $6.6 billion this year, were a cornerstone of the government’s fall economic statement Oct. 30.

 

Ford accused the Liberal leader of planning to raise taxes when he made the cheque announcement in Scarborough.

 

“Instead of holding on to this money like Bonnie Crombie would, we’re putting it back into the pockets of taxpayers,” the premier said in a partisan boast. “She wants to increase taxes, increase the carbon tax.”

 

Crombie shot back with a reminder “the only reason” Ontarians pay the federal carbon levy is because Ford axed the province’s cap-and-trade environmental pact with Quebec and California in 2018.

“We will not implement a carbon tax,” she added.

 

The Liberals and other opposition parties have accused Ford’s PCs, who have a solid lead in public opinion polls, of using the $200 rebate cheques to bribe Ontarians into voting for them as the government faces an RCMP investigation into its $8.28-billion Greenbelt land swap scandal.

 

Under Crombie’s proposal, the eight per cent provincial portion of the 13 per cent Harmonized Sales Tax on home heating fuel would be eliminated.

 

The Liberal source said other consumer friendly tax relief measures will be included in a “fiscally responsible” package paid for by ending the government’s “multibillion-dollar deals” that will benefit a private spa at Ontario Place, Staples stores into which ServiceOntario counters are being moved, and as much as $1 billion being spent to move beer, wine and pre-mixed cocktails into convenience stores a year earlier than planned.

 

Ford’s tax-free $200 cheques will be sent to all taxpayers 18 and over. Families who qualify for federal Canada Child Benefit payments receive an additional $200 for every child under 18.

 

 

 

 

This article was first reported by The Star