{"id":19046,"date":"2014-07-14T20:40:19","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T12:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=19046"},"modified":"2014-07-14T20:40:19","modified_gmt":"2014-07-14T12:40:19","slug":"liberals-not-worried-about-credit-downgrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/07\/14\/liberals-not-worried-about-credit-downgrade\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberals not worried about credit downgrade"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Progressive<\/a>
Progressive Conservative Leader Jim Wilson (Screenshot from Educated Solutions<\/a> footage)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO — Ontario’s Liberal government is dismissing Opposition claims that today’s budget will lead to a very expensive downgrade in the province’s credit rating.<\/p>\n

New York-based Moody’s recently lowered Ontario’s outlook from stable to negative, citing concerns about the province’s ability to eliminate a $12.5 billion deficit in three years.<\/p>\n

Interim Progressive Conservative Leader Jim Wilson says Moody’s made it clear it didn’t like the May 1 budget that triggered last month’s election, and the Liberals plan to re-introduce the identical fiscal blueprint today.<\/p>\n

Wilson says the budget was “a hodgepodge of new programs and expanded spending” that Ontario simply cannot afford.<\/p>\n

But Finance Minister Charles Sousa says the credit rating agencies like the fact the Liberals won a majority on June 12, saying investors are pleased there is a “more stable” government.<\/p>\n

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says she has concerns that the budget will allow “the wholesale sell-off” of assets like the LCBO and Hydro One and that the Liberals aren’t coming clean about the need for massive layoffs to balance the books.<\/p>\n

The key details of the budget were reported in May, including $29 billion for public transit and infrastructure projects, $2.5 billion for corporate grants to job creators and $1 billion to develop the Ring of Fire mineral deposit in northern Ontario.<\/p>\n

It will also increase taxes for individuals earning more than $150,000, and create a new provincial pension plan for the nearly two-thirds of Ontario workers who don’t have already have a pension, requiring contributions from companies and employees.<\/p>\n

There are also pledges to build new college and university campuses, create spaces for 15,000 more post secondary students, and to increase the number of apprentices training in Ontario.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO — Ontario’s Liberal government is dismissing Opposition claims that today’s budget will lead to a very expensive downgrade in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":19047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18,483],"tags":[6677,6678,1112,3835],"class_list":["post-19046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","category-politics","tag-jim-wilson","tag-liberals","tag-ontario","tag-progressive-conservative","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}