Business unfriendly’ is the new normal for Ontario and Ottaw The detachment of the McGuinty and Wynne governments from the reality of business conditions is reflected in the creation of an anti-business climate more by design than by accident. Deficits have soared to be the second-highest per capita in Canada. By its own admission, Ontario has 380,000 regulations on the books, many of which fundamentally distort the relationship between business and its customers. Electricity rates are the highest in North America. The minimum wage has doubled since 2003, with further increases now automatically indexed to inflation no matter what the reality of unemployment in a particular year. Raising business costs by adopting a new (albeit inconsistently applied) holiday in the middle of a recession exemplifies how tone-deaf the Liberal government is to business concerns. Government hand-outs and favouritism to specific firms must be added to the list of policies that foster an unhealthy business climate of dependence on government subsidies instead of true innovation for growth.
The government’s indifference to how its own policies create uncertainty is reflected in how it announced the roll-out of an Ontario Retirement Pension Plan in 2015, then suspended the plan after the federal election, followed by warnings that firms would have to start setting aside contributions in 2017, before cancelling the plan altogether after Ottawa announced its own changes to the national pension plan. However, this pales by comparison with the government’s latest idea of a complete takeover of energy production and consumption, at substantially higher prices, as part of its Climate Change Action Plan that was concocted without input from key players such as the auto industry.
https://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/philip-cross-business-unfriendly-is-the-new-normal-for-ontario-and-ottawa