Key highlights include:

• Reducing Costs of Doing Business
  • Laying the groundwork for long-term economic growth by advancing critical broadband infrastructure, smart taxes to enhance business competitiveness, efficient regulation, workforce training, and opportunities for public-private partnerships.
• Electricity Relief
  • Reducing commercial and industrial electricity rates will make Ontario businesses more competitive and enable them to invest in recovery and growth. For years, Ontario businesses have paid more for electricity than most other jurisdictions in North America, and the pandemic has only increased electricity system costs.
  • Starting January 1, 2021, a portion estimated at approximately 85 per cent of high-cost wind, solar and bioenergy contracts will be funded by the Province, not ratepayers. This is expected to create an average reduction of 16% for Class A customers and 14% for Class B customers.
• Business Education Tax Rate (BET) Reduction and Regional Equality
  • BET rates vary throughout Ontario; as a result, businesses in London, Waterloo, Hamilton, Toronto, Windsor/Middlesex, and Kingston are paying higher taxes than those in other regions. The government has announced it will both reduce the BET rate and address regional variance within that rate, both of which the OCC has advocated for in the past.
• Employer Health Tax (EHT)
  • The province has committed to making the threshold of $1 million permanent, meaning some businesses will no longer have to pay this tax. The decision to make the higher EHT threshold permanent is a welcome one that will free thousands of businesses from having to pay this tax.
  • The EHT exemption will provide an estimated $360 million in relief in 2021-22.
• Workforce Development
  • Reskilling is essential to the rapid re-employment of workers that were displaced during the COVID-19 crisis, particularly given the permanent restructuring expected in hard-hit sectors such as retail, hospitality, and tourism. Creating a common understanding and validation of micro-credentials for employers through the development of a micro-credential framework will be critical to get people reskilled and back to work.
• Small Business Tax Relief
  • The move to allow municipalities to target property tax relief specifically to small business is a creative and important tool to grant communities, given that small business has been hardest hit by the pandemic.
• Broadband Expansion

Broadband is a basic infrastructure requirement in today’s economy, but the ongoing pandemic has made it even more essential to public health and economic resilience. We are very pleased to see the government take this seriously with an additional investment of $680 million (for a total of nearly $1 billion) over six years.