As we know, the Ford Government returned with a third majority mandate on February 27, 2025. To initiate a new parliament, Lieutenant Governor Edith Dumont, read the Speech from the Throne on April 15, 2025, outlining the Government’s agenda for this parliamentary session.
The speech, entitled Protect Ontario, focused on the economic threats from the United States. The speech laid out commitments in six areas while reiterating previous commitments:
Protect Ontario by Unleashing the Economy
- Break down internal trade barriers between provinces and territories through legislation
- Recognize credentials from other provinces and territories to grow the labour force and economy
- Champion new pipelines, railroads, highways, airports and seaports
- Pass new legislation to provide authority to designate regions with critical minerals as regions of strategic importance including the Ring of Fire.
- Further streamline environmental assessment process, bring 'common sense' conservation principles to the role of Conservation Authorities and species-at-risk.
- Invest in energy production, transmission, and storage
Protect Ontario by Building
- Invest $200 billion in a plan to build, including new tunnel expressway and transitway under Highway 401
- Remove bike lanes from main roads onto secondary roads
- Expand subway service by more than 50%
- Continue investments in building local infrastructure and homes
- Highlighting the City of Vaughan and City of Mississauga, leverage investments to work with municipalities to lower costly development fees
- Standardize and bring more transparency to the cost and timelines of building homes, including for local development charges, study requirements and Building Code permit approvals.
- Include mandatory use of Ontario and Canadian steel, cement, forestry, and other construction materials for government-funded infrastructure projects.
Protect Ontario Workers
- Provide new opportunities for students to learn critical life skills like personal finance and increase access to career coaching to connect the next generation with the jobs of the future.
Protect Ontario by Keeping Costs Down
- Mentioned the need to "do more" to lower costs for families
- Stated that "taxpayer dollars belong to taxpayers, not government"
Protect Ontario Borders and Communities
- Re-introduce legislation to provide municipalities the enhanced tools they need to end encampments and clean up parks and public spaces.
- Press the City of Ottawa to fix bail system and end catch-and-release policies
Protect Ontario Health Care
- Reiterated existing investments that have been made for long-term care beds, investments in hospitals
While we welcome the continued investments in infrastructure and services, we are disappointed that none of our Functional Foundations provincial election priorities were specifically mentioned. We are interested in hearing more from this Government on their plans for municipal investments to build homes, but remain concerned about provincial encroachment into areas of local decision-making, such as bike lanes, and what changes may be made to the development charges system. We also remain concerned about the implications from the expanded roll-out of strong mayor powers across the province.
As always, our team continues to monitor items of local government interest from the provincial and federal governments, and as an Association, we will continue to support members in responding to new developments. We hope to work as collaborative partners with this Government over the next four years to advance our Issue Profile in support of our members, municipal administrators, and the wider sector.
While we will continue to provide advocacy updates to members on major government announcements or changes impacting our Issue Profile, we encourage you to subscribe to our policy blog for more frequent updates on other regulatory postings, policy changes, new research, court decisions, and more.