Finance Minister Charles Sousa has ensured there will be no election this year in Ontario.

Sousa on Monday announced that he will table his fall economic statement on Nov. 7, but confirmed it would not be a mini-budget with tax changes.

“I don’t foresee this to be a measure of confidence,” the treasurer told reporters at Queen’s Park.

“The measures in this fall economic statement will talk to a number of programs and initiatives that will be addressed in the budget in the coming spring,” he said.

Because there won’t be a confidence vote on the fall fiscal update, Premier Kathleen Wynne’s minority Liberal government should survive until Sousa tables his budget in late March or early April.

That means the earliest Ontarians could go to the polls is likely May 29.

Sousa said his Nov. 1 statement would reiterate his intention to eliminate the deficit, which now sits at $11.7 billion, within the next four years.

“We’re going to be talking about the ways that . . . we’re going to stay committed to balancing the books by 2017-18,” he said.

Asked if there was any chance of Ontario loosening its liquor laws to allow the sales of beer and wine in corner stores to boost government revenue, Sousa shook his head.

“At this point, we’re going to stick with the framework and the plan that we have.”

Progressive Conservative MPP Vic Fedeli (Nipissing) said it’s unfortunate that Ontario voters likely won’t have a chance to throw out the Liberals until next spring.

“The people of Ontario are ready for a change in direction and the only way it seems we can have a change of direction is to change the government,” said Fedeli.

“Here we are with 600,000 men and women who woke up this morning without a job and there’s absolutely no plan whatsoever from this government to put any of those people to work,” he said.

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NDP MPP Gilles Bisson (Timmins—James Bay), whose party has kept the Liberals in power since 2011 by not defeating the past two budgets after winning policy concessions, sounded less eager to hit the campaign trail.

“Listen, there’s going to be an election in Ontario over the next couple of years. Whenever that is (then) the people of Ontario will pronounce themselves as to what they want to do as far as a change in government.”