Ontario is heading towards a spring election after NDP leader Andrea Horwath said she would not be supporting the minority Liberals' latest budget.
In a news conference on Friday morning, she said that Premier Kathleen Wynne's government "cannot be trusted and cannot be supported any longer." The Grits survived the last two budget cycles with the assistance of NDP MPPs.
"I have lost confidence in Kathleen Wynne and her ability to deliver," Horwath said Friday. "I cannot in good conscience support a government that people don't trust anymore."
Horwath's announcement comes a day after she stayed silent as the Liberals released their budget on Thursday.
On Friday, she listed a number of scandals she says have caused her to lose confidence in the Wynne government. She also pointed to a number of undelivered Liberal promises.
Should Andrea Horwath and the NDP have supported the Liberal budget?
"Ultimately, there's a lot of momentum in different camps pushing for a spring election," said Peter Graefe, a McMaster University political science professor. "They were in a difficult position."
Wynne had given Horwath a May 8 deadline to indicate whether she would support the budget. With Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak already indicating he would not back it, the decision of whether to keep the Wynne government alive fell into Horwath's hands.
"This budget is not a solid plan for the future," she said. "It's a mad dash to escape the scandals. It's time for change. We do not support this government any longer."
Graefe told CBC Hamilton that as much as people talked about the Liberal budget as a created to "seduce" the NDP, it could also be seen as a "threat," as the Liberals tried to position themselves as more left leaning while Horwath made an attempt to court voters who might not be traditional NDP supporters.
"One certainly hears about a lot of sectors that used to be loyal NDP supporters that aren't anymore," he said.
A spring election also throws a shadow of doubt over light rail transit (LRT) being built in Hamilton. Premier Kathleen Wynne's Liberals have said they'll make nearly $29 billion available for transit funding in the coming years, along with other "revenue tools" in Thursday's budget. About $15 billion will be for transit in Toronto and Hamilton.
Transit advocates and city council have hoped the province would fully fund LRT for years. The city included LRT in its Rapid Ready transit plan it submitted to the province, and passed a motion saying it supported LRT if the province paid all of the capital costs, estimated in 2011 to be about $800 million.
Graefe says the LRT project could end up "further down the list" from infrastructure projects in Toronto after an election. "Certainly if a Conservative government was elected, they likely wouldn't see LRT in Hamilton as a focus," he said. "[Horwath] is in favour of it, but she seems to think there's this endless well of corporate taxes to pay for it."
A "lack of consistent vision" from city council also doesn't help the project's chances, he added.
"We are in a situation where no one wants to pay for it — at least municipally."
An election must be held on the 5th Thursday after the writs of election — formal legal documents — are put together. They are prepared for each of the electoral districts in the province as an official notice that the election process is underway.
Elections Ontario likely won't allow an election on June 5 because of the Jewish holiday Shavuot. The elections act allows for moving the date for a significant religious date. That makes the most likely dates for an election June 12 or June 19.
The response in Hamilton on social media was swift:
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