Canadian Personal Finance Blog

For me, not much really. The official news release about the budget can be found here. The only highlights that affect me indirectly and directly are:

• $1.5 billion, three-year Skills to Jobs Action Plan, which really doesn’t touch me directly, unless of course I get laid off and want to learn a real trade, then it might.
• Lots of spending in the health area, which should touch me in some fashion ($40.4 Billion)
• $18.8Billion in Education grants for class size, since my kids are still in school that is a nice addition.
• “…$385 million over three years for an annual Textbook and Technology Grant that will help every full-time university and college student…”, that would help out because text books cost a BLOODY fortune.
• And there are no tax increases, which is good too, since I don’t like tax increases no matter what, I am funny that way.

Kind of ho-hum budget, some perks for businesses, but nothing much for me, but some useful infrastructure spending (mostly in Toronto) too.

Best of: Library our Frugal Friend

One of the best places to get any financial information is your local public library and I just remembered a post I did a while back about The Library Our Frugal Friend.

Given I am an unpublished author (well not really an author, but a writer), here is a great tip for you folks who want to READ and LEARN about Financial things:

GO TO YOUR LIBRARY!

Pretty simple. Here in Ottawa the one thing that amalgamation did do is create a large very well stocked Library (click on Go To Your Library to see their web site).

I take out Music CD’s, DVD’s, VHS Videos, and most importantly books. Pretty much any and all books I might mention here in this blog, I have taken out of the library (I can’t afford to BUY books, but I can afford to take them out, read them, and maybe jot down in a notebook the parts which I agree with, or think are a good idea).

Usually your local library membership is FREE (in Ottawa it is), and most are relatively cheap, and you get your money’s worth very quickly. In fact DONATE to your library to keep them up and running (heck, even Volunteer, they are usually looking for those too). Libraries are great resources for the CHEAP and FRUGAL!

Let me leave you with a Simpson point of view on the Library:

Homer: Now, who’s up for a trip to the library tomorrow? Notice I no longer say liberrie or tomorrie.

Well, it’s a kind of “not much for Big Cajun Man” kind of budget. My highlights of it are pretty small but I will attempt to broaden my scope to help my readers, but read here for more details on the Ontario Budget 2007 .

• A phased in minimum wage increase to $10.25 as predicted. This is a start, but again, I don’t know many folks that can live on that in Ontario.
• An enhancement to the current child care programs, but it is for very low income families, so doesn’t do much for me, but I applaud that they are helping needy folks too.
• Lots of money going to municipalities for infrastructure as well (the Mayor of Ottawa was ecstatic about this budget, which always worries me). $5.9B to be exact for infrastructure across the province.
• Property tax assessments will be for four years starting in 2009, so my house’s value which is currently increasing will only be reflected in my taxes every four years. There is also talk of changing the entire Property Tax formula, but I’ll believe that one when I see it.
• Lots of money for Business Education.
• A “balanced” budget earlier than predicted (this will be part of their election platform no doubt).
• An increase in Health spending, hiring of 8,000 more nurses but no cutting of the OHIP tax either.
• More money going to education, which is good to hear, given the programs that are being cut here in Ottawa, due to underfunding. Will this change much? Again, we’ll see.

The Beautiful Back Roads, which need fixing too.

So what you say? Well, so did I, it’s putting money back into the system, and the budget is allegedly balanced, but this is after they implemented new taxes at the start of their term, so I am not happy about that one (still).

The Education spending seems to be not well focused, and a lot of school boards are still having problems, which means, I am not sure the money is going to the right places, but at least there will be more money (hopefully that will not be solely used to give teachers, principals, custodians and staff pay raises (not that there is anything wrong with pay raises for those folks, just that every time money goes into the system, it doesn’t seem to be going to the kids?)).

Will this budget get the Liberals re-elected? I don’t think it’s a PLUS or a MINUS, it’s kind of neutral, with the big statement being that they managed to balance the budget, given the fiscal mess they were left by the Tories (quoting Liberal rhetoric, not my opinions).

I put a lot of gas into my van yesterday ($60.00) and it didn’t fill the tank. Used to be I could fill it for $40.00, now almost $75.00 is more like it, this is far too similar to the 70’s and the pre-cursor to inflation for my liking. Hope all levels of government are doing something to avert it, but I suspect inflation is coming, real soon. That is your doom and gloom for a Friday statement.

Ontario Budget 2007

More information is starting to leak out about the Ontario Budget due out today:

• As I mentioned yesterday rumors of a gradual raising of the minimum wage to $10.25 per hour (over an unknown period of time)
• A “balanced” budget for the first time in a while for Ontario. What “balanced” means is open to interpretation.
• Some green initiatives for the environment

So what? Well that is what one member of parliament is saying:

“ When you see that Dalton McGuinty’s total spending has gone up by some $ 20 billion, a 34- per- cent increase, that takes your breath away,” Conservative member of Provincial Parliament Tim Hudak commented.

Very true, of course who left them with the fiscal mess? Bob Rae? No, can’t use him as a whipping boy any more.And from the far left we have Howard Hampton

“ I think we’ll get a budget laden with more McGuinty promises. People will have to take those promises with huge dollops of salt.”

But salt is bad for my blood pressure Mr. Hampton!My guess is there will be a few election promises closed on, given the next election is in October, and a lot of trumpeting about balancing the books 2 years earlier than they promised (which is a good thing, but who is auditing these books?). Would be nice if he cut the OHIP tax he created now he has all this money from the Federal Government, but I suspect that tax is here to stay.

Oh, and in other news, remember all those rants I have had about lottery tickets and such, and how they are a waste of money, evidently there are “ethics” issues with the selling of them as well, at least from the CBC’s point of view, read here about Lottery Fraud Allegations.

Yes, the Ontario Provincial Budget is due out tomorrow, and this one should be interesting since it is the last budget before the upcoming provincial election this fall. Can I find much analysis or guesswork out there about what might be included? Not much really, I found Mr. McGuinty’s response to the Federal Budget on the Provincial Liberal’s web site but not much else right now.

I have heard talk that there is a plan to raise the minimum wage in Ontario to around $10 an hour, but that is only planned to be phased in over the next three years or so, currently it is around $8/hour. So someone working the minimum wage for a 42 hour work week is going to gross about $340.00, a week, doesn’t seem like enough to live on to me.

There are comments about post secondary funding I have heard, but nothing concrete mentioned as of yet. There will need to be closure on any election promises from 4 years ago, but then again, I don’t remember much of those either.

This seems to be almost a Stealth Budget about to be brought down by Queens Park. The Liberals hope you don’t read it, or even think about it? That’s a little cynical, I guess, but still, no one seems to care about it.