TORONTO -- Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne took steps Thursday to avoid a possible spring election by announcing the Liberal government would not raise taxes on middle-income earners to fund public transit.
"So I just want to be clear, we're taking those potential revenue tools off the table: increase in HST, increase in gas tax, increases in personal income tax for middle-income families," Wynne said at a campaign-style stop at a home in mid-Toronto.
Wynne has vowed to find the "revenue tools" necessary to raise the billions of dollars needed each year to upgrade and expand public transit in the Toronto-to-Hamilton corridor, and an expert panel recommended several tax hikes as options.
The NDP made it clear they would not support any moves by the minority government to increase taxes on the middle class, while the Progressive Conservatives have been warning voters that the Liberals would hike the gas tax 10 cents a litre.
"The focus on HST and gas tax has been a decision made by the Opposition, a very targeted decision over the last couple of weeks," said Wynne.
"So I'm saying this today just because the escalation of the focus on these very particular revenue tools has, I think, distorted the discussion, and so I just wanted to be clear that those are not things that we're going to do."
Wynne also dismissed suggestions she was trying to secure NDP support for the budget for the third year in a row by saying she won't hike taxes on the middle class.
"This isn't about one party's perspective," she said. "I'm not talking to the NDP. I'm talking to families and individuals who are working very hard to make sure that they have the kind of life that they deserve."
The Tories had also been claiming the Liberals would force people all across the province to pay for the badly needed transit upgrades in the heavily-congested communities across southern Ontario.
The government won't do that, said Wynne, even though gridlock in the GTA hurts the economy across Ontario because so many goods must travel through the region.
"We need investments in new transit and transportation infrastructure and we cannot wait to do that, but whatever we do has to be fair," she said.
"It's essential to the prosperity of local economies across the province, but I'm not going to ask the people in North Bay to pay for transit in the GTA. That's not part of our plan. It's never been part of our plan."
The Conservatives said the Liberals can't be believed when they promise not to raise taxes, and pointed to the health tax imposed on every Ontario worker by former premier Dalton McGuinty after he signed a pledge not to increase taxes.
"They promise one thing as an election approaches, then do the opposite afterwards," said PC finance critic Vic Fedeli. "This is a pre-election mirage intended solely to get the Liberals past the next vote."
NDP house leader Gilles Bisson responded to Wynne's announcement by tweeting: "one can never believe a Liberal promising to not raise your taxes. Remember (Dalton) McGuinty and his HST."
The premier said the government will announce how it intends to raise the billions of dollars it needs to expand public transit in the upcoming budget, and would create a new fund for the transit revenue.
"There are new revenue tools, (there's) leveraging debt, there's the dedication of existing revenue tools, all of those things are part of the mix," she said. "And when we bring forward our plan in the spring there will be a mix of those initiatives, including having a fund that's visible to people, that's transparent, so people will know what money is going into that fund and how that money is being spent."
