Premier Doug Ford is mailing out $200 “rebate” cheques to 15 million Ontarians in a $3-billion hit to a provincial treasury awash in red ink.
Confirming a scheme first revealed by the Star on Oct. 16, Ford on Tuesday said the cheques would be in the mail early in the new year, “because life is expensive right now.”
The payments — a cornerstone pledge of Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy’s fall economic statement Wednesday — set the stage for a spring election, one year ahead of the scheduled June 2026 vote.
Striking a partisan tone at the campaign-style government announcement in a Scarborough gymnasium, Ford tried to contrast his two-term Progressive Conservatives with the opposition Liberals and the New Democrats.
“The difference between our party and the Liberals and NDP — they believe in one thing: tax the taxpayers to death; drive companies out of this province. We’ve taken a different approach,” the premier insisted.
“Instead of holding on to this money like Bonnie Crombie would, we’re putting it back into the pockets of taxpayers. She wants to increase taxes, increase the carbon tax,” he said in a swipe at the Liberal leader.
Crombie, for her part, reminded Ford “the only reason” Ontarians pay the federal carbon levy is because he scrapped the province’s cap-and-trade environmental alliance with Quebec and California in 2018.
“We will not implement a carbon tax,” she said, accusing the premier of using $3 billion of “taxpayers’ money to buy their vote” next spring.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles dubbed the cheques, which will bear Bethlenfalvy’s signature, a “cynical” ploy.
“A lot of people are struggling right now, but a one-time payment right before an election isn’t going to solve the affordability crisis,” said Stiles.
“A $200 cheque, it might help you through groceries for that week, but it isn’t going to help you the next month or the month after that,” she said.
The tax-free cheques will be sent to all taxpayers 18 and over and families who qualify for federal Canada Child Benefit (CCB) payment receive an additional $200 for every child under 18.
“For families with children who did not receive the CCB for 2024, the government would provide an opportunity for a taxpayer rebate payment of $200 per child through an alternative process,” the PC government said in a statement.
That means 15 million payments will be sent out — 12.5 million for adults and 2.5 million for children. Only those Ontarians who were “bankrupt or incarcerated” this year will not receive a payment.
But Green Leader Mike Schreiner said “if you’re going to do something like this, you should have it means-tested,” so only the people most in need receive it.
“I don’t understand why millionaires and billionaires like Galen Weston should get a $200 cheque when there are so many Ontarians who can’t afford a home, 2.5 million can’t access a doctor,” said Schreiner, referring to the grocery tycoon.
“It is outrageous that people with seven-figure incomes are getting a $200 cheque.”
Asked by a journalist why the rich should also be mailed a cheque, Ford, multimillionaire scion of a wealthy family, bristled: “Because they’re taxpayers. These are tax dollars going back to the taxpayers and we’re going to give it back to every single person in Ontario.”
The cheque-mailing is a reprise of what former Tory premier Mike Harris did in 2000.
But when then-finance minister Ernie Eves announced $200 “dividend” cheques, the province’s books were balanced. (That $200 payment a generation ago would be worth around $335 today, according to the Bank of Canada inflation calculator.)
Bethlenfalvy’s fiscal update Wednesday is expected to show a hefty deficit, though the shortfall should be less than the surprise $9.8-billion deficit for 2024-25 he projected in the March 26 budget.
That was $10 billion more than the $200 million surplus he had forecast beforehand.
With files From Rob Ferguson
