The Liberals are trying to scare Ontarians into voting for them lest Doug Ford's PCs 'cut' programs that they only came up with 10 minutes ago and don't even exist yet

Among the few items in Wednesday’s Ontario budget that had not been pre-announced was a new “Ontario Drug and Dental Program.” Not that it came as a shock. The Liberals had already rolled out “free” prescriptions for Ontarians under 25, regardless of their parents’ means and existing coverage; more recently, they promised the same for Ontarians over 65, who already pay very little.

Obvious questions arose: Why expand pharmacare but not dental care? And what of Ontarians aged 25-64 who find themselves at the pharmacy with empty pockets?

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Here’s what: the new program would “reimburs(e) 80 per cent … of eligible prescription drug and dental expenses for those without workplace health benefits or not covered by … government programs.” Total cost: $800 million over the first two years, and if that sounds a bit low I should tell you what was in that first ellipsis: “up to a maximum of $400 per single person, $600 per couple and $700 for a family of four with two children.”

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There is a fine line between “It’s better than nothing” and “Get bent.” I spent $597 at the dentist on Tuesday: x-rays, scrape-and-polish, a filling. I’ll get most of that back from my benefits. The Liberal plan would reimburse me for two-thirds and leave me on my own for the rest of the year, not just for dental checkups but for prescription drugs as well. (And hang on … why does this plan punish people for getting married and having children?)

“Being able to afford to pay for prescription drugs and dental services is vital to maintaining good health,” finance minister Charles Sousa told the legislature, as if he were announcing something altogether more substantial. “Yet today, one in four people of working age in Ontario does not have access to an extended health benefits plan.”

Vote Liberal and they still won’t. After 15 years in power, the Liberals are trying to scare Ontarians into voting for them lest Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives “cut” programs that they only came up with 10 minutes ago and that don’t even exist yet. As interim PC leader Vic Fedeli told reporters, “Seventy-one days before an election, they’re throwing money at problems they created.”

The 2017 budget promised Ontarians three years of balanced budgets beyond 2017-18 (though the Financial Accountability Office doubted the government would manage that). The 2018 budget pitches that over the side in favour of $17.7 billion in deficit spending over those same three years, plus another $10 billion over the next three, and a return to balance only in 2024-25. There are billions upon billions to be spent on “free” prescriptions, and “free” daycare for kids aged 2.5 to four (assuming their parents can find a licensed space), and hospitals and mental health and home care.

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As a childless misanthrope with drug and dental coverage, I’m not really part of the Liberals’ core target demographic. But even if I were, I’m not sure this platform would much incline me to vote Liberal — not when the New Democrats are right there promising the same basic ideas, but more comprehensively and believably.

Kathleen Wynne’s El Cheapo drug-and-dental is a pale shadow of what the New Democrats have proposed: funding the 125 most commonly prescribed medications, for everyone. The NDP’s dental care proposal would cover everyone who isn’t already by forcing employers and individuals to purchase private-sector or government-administered plans, and while that won’t win many friends in the small-business lobby, it can at least lay a plausible claim to universality.

Photo by Chris Young/The Canadian Press

The Liberals’s plan cannot. Asked why they hadn’t means-tested their drug and dental benefits while leaving millions of Ontarians uncovered, Finance Minister Charles Sousa could only stammer out nonsense. “It was a conscious decision,” he averred. “It’s about universality.”

Huh?

In a Wednesday-afternoon press conference with reporters in the media lock-up, Ford was not at his best: joyless, babbling, making incomprehensible arguments about tax hikes. NDP leader Andrea Horwath was up next — and to a Ford skeptic’s eyes, she couldn’t look anything but better.

“What we’ve seen from Mr. Ford, even today, is that he’s not talking about change for the better — in fact, I really was having a hard time following him most of the time during that press conference,” she said. “Mr. Ford has a lot of platitudes, and a lot of sound bites. Maybe because that’s because he prints a lot of bumper stickers in his other life.”

What Ford doesn’t have, she argued — correctly, at least pending a platform — is substance. Horwath seemed energized, and she ought to be. If there weren’t a constituency for the big-government ideas in the Liberals’ 2018 budget, the budget would have been a very different document. For now, Ontarians seem to want change more than they care what it looks like. If Horwath can’t position herself as a credible change-agent in this environment, especially once Ontarians get to know Ford better, she should probably just throw in the towel.