With the province’s skilled workers getting older and in short supply, and its infrastructure in dire need of renewal, the government is taking prudent steps to address both concerns.
 
Monday, provincial Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said the budget would have a strong emphasis on skills training. To emphasize the point, he said it as carpentry students at George Brown College worked on their skills.
 
Duncan took the opportunity to take a shot at his government’s critics, primarily federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who has been very vocal in criticizing the economic policies of the Ontario Liberals. The Liberals, said Duncan, have a different approach to budgeting than the feds, and that tax cuts aren’t the only answer.
 
They aren’t the only answer, but they could be an important part of the puzzle. The province can’t ignore them simply to avoid being seen as getting bullied by the feds.
 
But Duncan is right. Tax cuts aren’t the only answer. A well-trained labour force with relevant skills is an attraction for investment. So is a viable infrastructure that helps businesses get products to market without undue delay.
 
The province’s infrastructure – roads, highways, bridges – screams out for renewal and the budget sensibly commits funds for this purpose. The budget, said Duncan, is investing strategically in job training and infrastructure renewal.
 
Municipalities will appreciate the focus on infrastructure. They have been the forgotten governance partner in the war of words between the feds and the province. But municipalities alone can’t shoulder the cost of rebuilding roads, bridges, highways, as well as making improvements to public transit.
 
They need assistance and rightly look to Queen’s Park and the feds, which have proven an understanding of municipal needs by making the gas tax sharing program a permanent one.

Prior to the budget, Premier Dalton McGuinty announced the province would spend $1 billion on municipal infrastructure, and $267 million on areas like public housing and nutrition in schools.

Further, the Liberals reversed a Tory-era law that directed all budget surpluses to debt retirement, allowing the government to spend some of that money on current needs.

Duncan says the government’s approach is pragmatic and balanced. That’s largely the direction Ontarians supported in 2003 and again in 2007. If that approach means a balanced budget, or one with a small surplus, a strategy of spending where it’s needed and a commitment to tax cuts that make sense,  then voters will be inclined to side with the Liberals.
 
If not, then Flaherty’s views may gain a wider audience.