Encampments, disability payments, highway tolls: Ontario parties talk affordability

Ontario’s main political parties pivoted to affordability measures Wednesday, as the threat of U.S. tariffs took a back seat on the campaign trail.

The NDP and Liberal leaders focused on housing and affordability issues, with promises to end homeless encampments and provide more financial support for people with disabilities.

The Progressive Conservatives pledged to make an ongoing tax cut for gasoline and diesel fuel permanent and also remove tolls from the publicly owned portion of Highway 407 east of Toronto.

The affordability crisis has dogged Doug Ford’s government over the past several years and was set to be a major campaign issue before Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election.

Homeless encampments sprouted up across Ontario during the pandemic and have increased in number since. There were some 1,400 encampments in the province in 2023, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario found.

More than 80,000 people were homeless in Ontario last year, the association said in a groundbreaking report based on provincial data released last month.

Stiles listed several steps she would take to end encampments in communities across the province, calling their presence Ford’s “greatest failure.” But she would not say how much her plan would cost, saying only “that will all come” later.

The association of municipalities has said $11 billion over 10 years would be required to end chronic homelessness.

Meanwhile, Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie vowed to double payments under the Ontario Disability Support Program, which currently maxes out at $1,368 per month for a single person. She said the boost would be permanent, pegged to inflation and phased in over two years.

“It will be costed and part of the platform when we release it,” she said during a campaign stop at a food bank in Hamilton, adding that the pledge goes “hand-in-hand” with her key priority to find everyone in Ontario a family doctor in four years.

Shortly before Ford called the snap election, his government announced it was giving municipalities up to $75.5 million to end encampments by creating more emergency shelter spaces and affordable housing units.

People are simply moving from one encampment to another, and the last-minute pot of money will not solve the problem, Stiles said in Toronto on Wednesday.

“After seven years of Doug Ford, encampments are the new normal,” Stiles said. “Seeing tents in parks is a stark reminder of how utterly Doug Ford has failed. He has failed on housing, he has failed on health care, he has failed on creating good jobs and he has failed to make life affordable.”

Stiles said an NDP government would create 60,000 new supportive housing units, have the province pay for shelter costs instead of municipalities and double social assistance rates. She did not indicate how much the promises would cost.

“First of all, that will all come, but I will tell you this, we can’t afford not to do this,” she said.

Asked about the NDP’s latest pledge, Crombie said she doesn’t “make comments” on other parties’ platforms but agreed that more affordable and supportive housing is needed, especially for people with addictions and mental health issues. She, too, called encampments a failure of the Ford government.

The government had also announced $378 million to create 19 homelessness and addiction recovery treatment hubs, with up to 375 highly supportive housing units, but Crombie called them “a drop in the bucket” compared to the huge need for such services.

At a campaign stop in Pickering, Ont., Ford said he’ll permanently cut the provincial tax on gas by 5.7 cents per litre and on diesel by 5.3 cents per litre, if re-elected. The province first temporarily slashed the gasoline and diesel tax rates in July 2022, but has repeatedly extended the cuts since.

Tolls on the provincially operated 43-kilometre section of Highway 407 from Pickering to Clarington, Ont., will be taken off permanently should the Progressive Conservatives win the election, Ford added.

“Tolls are absolutely horrible,” he said.

A Ministry of Transportation report in 2021 projected those tolls would generate the province around $72 million in revenue in 2024-25.

Ford disputed it was lost revenue, saying his pledge would put money back in drivers’ pockets.

“It’s not the government’s money, it’s their money,” he said.

Ford had previously mused about buying back the 407 ETR, which Mike Harris’s PC government sold off in 1999 for $3.1 billion.

Ford called that move a “big mistake,” but on Wednesday seemed cool to the idea of buying it back.

Buying the highway would not “add more capacity,” Ford claimed.

The NDP has pledged to remove tolls from the entirety of Highway 407 and buy back the private portion of the highway.

At the 407 announcement Wednesday, Ford’s media team suddenly ended questions even though more reporters were waiting. Press secretary Grace Lee then informed media that going forward, Ford would only take questions from up to six reporters at his campaign events.

The move is reminiscent of Ford’s 2018 election campaign, when his team also limited the number of questions he would face.

After Ford’s Progressive Conservatives formed government his team continued to limit media access, with staffers clapping to drown out more questions and creating their own taxpayer-funded “news network” that was criticized as partisan propaganda.

Even before the campaign decided Wednesday to limit the number of people who could ask Ford questions, reporters were restricted to one question and one followup each.

Ford called a snap election for Feb. 27, saying he needs a fresh mandate to deal with Trump and his tariff threats. Stiles, Crombie and Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner have all said the election is unnecessary, a waste of money and nothing short of a power grab by Ford while he’s ahead in the polls.

Elections Ontario has said the budget for the election is $189 million.

— With files from Sharif Hassan in Toronto

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2025.

Allison Jones and Liam Casey, The Canadian Press