The Ontario Federation of Labour attended the 2026 Budget Consultation on January 16, 2026.
Below are the speaking notes delivered by OFL President Laura Walton. A full written submission with additional detail will be submitted to the Ontario Minister of Finance by January 30, 2026.
Good morning.
I’m Laura Walton, President of the Ontario Federation of Labour, representing 54 affiliated unions and one million workers in Ontario.
I sit before you today, to ask you to invest in Ontario. Seems a simple request, right? But when I speak about investing in Ontario, I am not asking you to invest in corporations, or projects with decades long timelines. I am asking you to invest in Ontario today – invest in workers, invest in their families and invest in their communities.
In my role I have the honour of speaking to workers of all stripes in communities across our great province – and the concerns are the same regardless of who I speak to – they need real investments – they need plans not more promises.
We need a plan to invest in publicly funded and publicly delivered health care. We need a plan to invest not just in buildings, but in the very people who deliver the health care we need. We need less investment in private staffing agencies and surgery providers that drain our public coffers and more investment in our communities’ health from doctors, nurses, healthcare workers of all stripes – in our hospitals and long term care homes.
We need a plan to invest in our future. We need to ensure that the 220,000 children on child care waitlist not only have a space but have trained, well paid staff ensuring their safety and enrichment.
Our schools are the heart of our communities, yet we are letting our schools crumble inside and out. The 6.3 billion dollar reduction in education funding has left us with retention and recruitment issues, decaying buildings and under supported students. Even the province’s own appointed supervisors have come to the reality that underfunding our schools doesn’t set up our children for a promising future.
And the future isn’t more rosy for our post-secondary sector. As a result of the lowest per student funding in Canada – students and communities are watching programs disappear, jobs end and opportunities growing bleaker.
As a result of lack of investment in combination with Trumps tariffs, more workers and their families are relying on food banks. Our social services are stretched to a breaking point. Housing insecurity is now a reality as the number of unhoused reaches six figures up 25% in just two years. Even ODSP and OW rates don’t even cover rent. People cannot access the services they need – be it for their children with autism or supports for mental health and addiction.
But you as the government can change this landscape – you have the power to choose people over politics and choices. You can make plans not just promises.
And I am asking you to do that today. I am asking you in these 180 seconds to make a choice.
Choose the workers that make our province strong rather than the corporations that put money into their offshore accounts.
Choose the families and communities by investing in publicly funded, publicly delivered services.
Choose the people of Ontario over privatization schemes.
Choose a legacy of building Ontario by investing in the people who really build Ontario – the workers, their families and their communities.
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