There was a time when Ontario’s provincial budget was shrouded in secrecy, a mysterious document held under lock and key until after the finance minister donned the obligatory new shoes.

Now, Premier Kathleen Wynne is forging a new path toward budget day this week. Instead of secrecy, she has been offering Ontarians a steady drip of details including progressive policies, while keeping any harsher austerity measures under wraps at least for now.

It’s a clever approach — a budgetary strip tease designed to put the unpopular political decisions of her predecessor in the past while offering advance notice of her plans to move forward.

And since Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak already plans to vote against Thursday’s budget regardless of what’s in it, Wynne is trying to keep her government alive by courting New Democratic Party Leader Andrea Horwath with a full-frontal embrace of at least one of her demands.

Indeed, Wynne has taken Horwath’s call for better home care and torqued it with a Liberal twist. Wynne’s recent $260-million home care boost far exceeded the NDP demand for $30 million. That should certainly address Horwath’s desire for a five-day maximum wait.

Social assistance reform is also a priority, as a recent public commission concluded, and the Liberals are following some of its recommendations . They will allow recipients to keep their first $200 a month in earnings from part-time jobs, as the New Democrats demanded, and will boost the assets allowed from $600 to $2,500 when qualifying for benefits. For many, that will stave off destitution.

In a nod to Horwath’s focus on working families, the Liberals are expected as well to cut automobile insurance rates. They hope to achieve most of that by attacking insurance fraud. And Finance Minister Charles Sousa is expected to suggest some rate cuts to the industry’s regulator. While this doesn’t meet the NDP demand for a 15 per cent cut, it does push forward the yardstick.

On Friday, Wynne promised a $100-million fund for northern Ontario roads and bridges.

And Sousa had cheery news for the Economic Club last week : The province's projected deficit now stands at $9.8 billion, a $5-billion drop. That's the kind of good news that is usually saved for budget day.

This slow release of populist, progressive news is allowing Wynne to set the stage for survival. By publicly playing her hand, Wynne wants Ontarians to believe that she is committed to, well, just about everyone including the middle class, seniors and the poor. But without seeing the whole package there’s no way to know whether the NDP will consider the budget worthy of extending the government’s life.

We need to see the full scope of Wynne’s agenda on deficit fighting, economic growth, transit, youth employment plans, skills training and aboriginal health, among other issues. Her first budget effort could still misfire. But for now it looks like she is promising measures in line with the NDP’s demands. The further Wynne goes, the more difficult it will be for Horwath to justify a spring election.

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