The Ontario legislature is set to adjourn immediately after the budget is tabled this Thursday, Global News has learned, effectively turning the spending document into the Ontario PC party’s election platform.
Sources told Global News the house would rise immediately after Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy introduces the Ford government’s final budget of its first mandate, with an interim plan to return only in September.
Wrapping up the legislature — and curtailing debate on the document — would help springboard Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives into the spring election campaign which, by law, must be called on Wednesday May 4th.
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The move isn’t without precedent.
In 2014, Kathleen Wynne’s minority government was toppled after its budget failed to gain support from the NDP and weeks after winning a majority government Wynne re-tabled an identical spending plan.
In the run-up to the provincial budget, the Ford government has been making a flurry of spending announcements, many of which will directly benefit Progressive Conservatives ridings.
Since April 19th, government ministers have held a dozen pre-budget news conferences, including one in Bethlenfalvy’s own riding of Pickering-Uxbridge.
Other PC ridings that received new government spending include Parry Sound, Kitchener-Conestoga, Dufferin-Caledon, Perth-Wellington, Brantford-Brant, King-Vaughan, Sault St. Marie, and Niagara west.
Once called, the election campaign will last four weeks with voters heading to the polls on June 2nd.