Economy Unemployment in Ontario was a major political issue. In particular, the manufacturing sector had shrunk by about 30% or more than 300,000 jobs since 2002. The
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario proposed a plan called "Million Jobs Plan", outlining their strategy for job creation and economic growth. By reducing tax, government services, energy costs and regulations the PCs projected to create a cumulative 507,488 jobs over eight years. The plan also called for the reduction of 100,000 civil service jobs. Economists and critics noted fundamental mathematical errors with the PCs' projections. They held, even if the PCs' own data were correctly tabulated, only 50,000 extra jobs would be created (in addition to the 500,000 that would be created anyway without any policy change). The
Ontario Liberal Party proposed the 10 year "Jobs and Investment Plan", which proposed infrastructure investments as their main strategy to create jobs. The
Ontario New Democratic Party platform called for targeted tax credits and incentives to encourage job creation. The
Green Party of Ontario policy proposal stated that it would "focus on your job by lowering payroll taxes for small businesses" as well as investing in transit infrastructure and subsidising energy-saving home improvements. The Ontario Libertarian Party called for mass privatization, lower taxes and general deregulation, eliminating many business requirements such as permitting, insurance and certification that they considered to be interfering with job creation. Their platform called for government spending to be limited to "only core functions of government; defending life, liberty, and property" and as such would have eliminated industry subsidies or incentives of any kind, particularly in the energy sector. The
Communist Party of Ontario called for raising the minimum wage to $19 as well as introducing a guaranteed annual income, nationalization of the domestic steel industry, and investments in public housing, infrastructure and social programs, while shifting taxes from lower to higher income-earners and businesses.
Transit Due to rapid urban and suburban expansion in southern Ontario,
traffic congestion had been increasing greatly. A 2013 study by the
CD Howe Institute determined that it was costing $7.5-11 billion annually for the economy of Toronto alone. The Liberals promised $29 billion in infrastructure spending, $15 billion of which would go towards building new transit (mostly
LRT) lines in the
GTHA, based on the outline of
Metrolinx's
The Big Move plan, as well as an LRT in Ottawa. A high-speed rail line crossing the province from the southeast into Quebec was also planned. The PCs promised to finish building the
Eglinton Crosstown, but cancel all the other planned lines, and instead focus on quickly expanding GO service. The NDP plan was similar to the Liberal plan, but included an extra $1 billion to get certain projects built faster. == Endorsements ==