The Ontario Liberal Ottawa Platform

Our new Ontario Liberal team will be the partner that Ottawa deserves. We will grow essential services like healthcare and education, build housing and critical infrastructure, and create good jobs in Ottawa.

Making Ottawa a Place to Grow ✅ Cut the cost of public transit fares to $1 per ride until 2024 ✅ Commit 50% provincial funding for Stage 3 of Ottawa’s regional transit plan ✅ Expand cycling lanes and trails and make it easier to find and park bikes ✅ Help 26,000 more seniors in Ottawa get home care by 2026 ✅ Make sure every Ontarian has access to services in French ✅ Improve access to French immersion

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Cut transit fares to $1 per ride until 2024

Ontario Liberals will:

• Cut the cost of public transit fares to $1 per ride until 2024
• Commit 50% provincial funding for Stage 3 of Ottawa’s regional transit plan
• Expand cycling lanes and trails and make it easier to find and park bikes

Riding on transit creates so many wins for Ontario. It gets cars off the road, moves a greater number of people around the province and can be a more affordable alternative to driving. We want to save people money and move more people on transit – especially right now, as ridership is still a fraction of pre-pandemic levels.

We’re going to cut public transit fares to $1.00 per ride and $40 for monthly passes until January 2024. This fare rate will be applied to all public transit in Ontario – including OC Transpo, with the province fully replacing transit systems’ lost revenue. This measure will get an estimated 400,000 car trips off the road each day on top of making transit trips more affordable.

We’ll invest an additional $375 million in annual transit operating funding – supporting more routes, extended hours of service, improved accessibility and more intercity connections.

Frequent, accessible transit can transform neighbourhoods and empower people to choose transit. We’ll build dozens of new transit projects across the province – funding lines and stations that will improve people’s lives and make it easier to use transit, including Stage 3 of Ottawa’s regional transit plan, applying the lessons learned from the first two stages.

We want people to get around in active ways that don’t pollute. To complement our electric vehicle rebates, we will provide a 30% rebate for new electric bikes, mopeds or motorcycles up to $500. We’ll also provide communities with $100 million annually to build separated bike lanes and cycling trails, expand bike sharing and rental services and secure bike parking.

Build 10,000 new affordable homes

Ontario Liberals will:

• Get 1.5 million new homes built over the next 10 years
• Build 10,000 deeply affordable homes in Ottawa
• Establish the Ontario Home Building Corporation to finance and build much-needed affordable homes
• Prevent rent hikes by reinstating rent control everywhere in Ontario

Under the Ford Conservatives’ four different housing plans, the average Ontario home price went up by nearly half a million dollars, while rents have skyrocketed. The average price of a house in Ottawa has nearly doubled to over $850,000 since 2018.

One of the biggest reasons why housing costs are so high is because demand is much greater than supply. To meet demand, we’ll get at least 1.5 million new homes built in Ontario over the next 10 years – doubling the pace of building from the past decade. This ambitious target is what experts say we need to catch up to the rest of Canada, keep up with population growth and bring affordability back to Ontario’s housing market.

As part of these 1.5 million homes, we’ll build at least 138,000 new deeply affordable homes – including much-needed supportive housing and homes for Indigenous peoples – as well as retain and repair tens of thousands of existing affordable homes. By doing so, we’ll aim to end the waitlist for affordable public housing. At least 10,000 of these new affordable homes will be in Ottawa.

We strongly believe in building more homes and meeting housing demand – and have a plan to do just that. But when the Ford Conservatives created an arbitrary rent control exemption, they didn’t do it for Ontarians. They did it for developers, making renters’ lives unpredictable and less affordable each year. We’ll end the two-tiered rental market, bringing back rent control to all rental homes across Ontario and providing much-needed stability to renters who can prepare for smaller, more predictable rent increases.

Build new hospitals

Ontario Liberals will:

• Create over 3,000 new hospital beds across the province
• Build new capacity across the province, including 640 beds in a new Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus by 2028
• Build a new 1door4care hub at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario to serve kids and teens with special needs, medical complexity or facing mental health challenges

The pandemic has underscored the need for more permanent hospital capacity to handle whatever comes our way. We’ll accelerate the creation of more than 3,000 new modern hospital beds across the province over the next decade – a 20% growth in capacity from pre-pandemic levels. Investments in expanding and revitalizing hospitals will result in reduced wait times, broader and modern scope of service and much-needed relief for health care workers. 

We’ll move forward to merge seven locations spread across Ottawa, into a single, state-of-the-art building on CHEO’s main Smyth Road campus. We’ll also invest in clearing the waitlists for children’s surgeries, rehabilitation, procedures and mental health treatment as outlined in the Children’s Health Coalition’s Make Kids Count Action Plan.

Guarantee home care for everyone who needs it

Ontario Liberals will:

• Help 26,000 more seniors in Ottawa get home care by 2026
• Help seniors pay for home repairs and assistive tools like wheelchairs, hearing aids, ramps and lifts
• Give more money to caregivers that support their loved ones

Older adults want to live as long as possible in their own homes close to friends, neighbours and family. It’s past time that we listen to seniors and respect their choices. We’ll expand and make permanent the Seniors’ Home Safety Tax Credit to make living at home safer and more accessible – as well as cover more costs for assistive devices, such as wheelchairs, hearing aids and lifts. For people who take care of loved ones, we’ll make the Ontario Caregiver Tax Credit refundable, tax-free and paid out throughout the year and enhance access to support programs and tools.

We’ll guarantee that any senior who needs care in their own home gets it by increasing the annual budget for home and community care by over $2 billion through 10% annual increases with a focus on front-line non-profit care, resulting in 400,000 more seniors in Ontario able to get not-for-profit home care by 2026 – including 26,000 more seniors in Ottawa.

Support Franco-Ontarians

Ontario Liberals will:

• Make sure every Ontarian has access to services in French
• Increase the number of French-speaking health care workers
• Invest in affordable and supportive homes for Francophones
• Invest in French-language artistic, cultural and community opportunities
• Reinstate the French Language Services Commissioner

Currently, 20% of Francophones live in areas non-designated for French-language services. To ensure Francophones can access quality services in French no matter where they live, we’ll invest in better digital and remote solutions when bilingual staff are not available. In health care, we’ll create a more bilingual workforce and work with federal partners to increase the number of French-speaking international students who study in Ontario’s health care programs. We’ll also consult with the Francophone community to develop a French-language health strategy focused on finding where the service gaps are. And we’ll identify other ways to enhance access to French language health services, including adding preferred language to Ontario health cards.

As part of our housing plan, we’ll invest in affordable and supportive housing for the Francophone community – using Toronto’s Centres d’Accueil Héritage as an example of integrating French-language community care and housing. We’ll also invest in a new building for Mouvement d’implication francophone d’Orléans to offer French-language services in the artistic, cultural and community fields and increase Programme d’appui à la francophonie ontarienne funding to $3 million – prioritizing projects submitted by and for Francophones. Finally, we’ll reinstate the independent French Language Services Commissioner.

Protect and enhance French-language learning

Ontario Liberals will:

• Improve access to French immersion
• Build, repair and fund French-language schools
• Recruit, train and retain more French-language teachers
• Increase the number of French-speaking early childhood educators

With more Ontarians choosing a French-Immersion program for their children, the current system can limit access and create inequities. We’ll consult on how best to increase equitable access to French-Immersion programs and invest in new and repaired schools to meet demand for French language education. We’ll also recruit, train and retain more French-language teachers, including simplifying the hiring process for qualified newcomers. For preschool-aged kids, we’ll significantly increase the number of French-language early childhood educators for Ontario’s child care and early years centres.