Ontario’s 2025 Budget Misses the Mark on Equity and Urgent Social Needs

On May 15, the Ontario government launched their 2025 budget. Titled A Plan to Protect Ontario, the budget outlines $232.5 billion in total spending for the upcoming fiscal year. 

While framed as a blueprint for economic stability and growth, the budget fails to meet the needs of many Ontarians especially those facing poverty, housing precarity and barriers to health and social service access. Despite record spending, the budget offers few meaningful investments in core areas such as income security, social assistance, affordable housing, mental health and addiction services, or public education. Instead billions are committed towards highways, policing infrastructure, and corporate supports, priorities that leave behind those most impacted by the cost of living and affordability crisis.  

*“Other Programs” is a broad category combining municipal affairs, housing and homelessness programs, infrastructure for housing, and joint initiatives with the federal government such as the National Housing Strategy.

During the provincial elections of 2025, Social Planning Toronto published several election fact sheets on areas where additional investments are needed to address inequality and growing economic disparities: housing/homelessness, employment/income supports/poverty and supervised consumption sites (SCS). Our analysis below shows that the 2025 Provincial budget misses the mark when it comes to addressing critical social infrastructure.

Income Security, Employment, Healthcare & Education

The budget lacks significant enhancements to social assistance programs with only an inflationary increase to the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and no changes to Ontario Works (OW), which has not seen an increase since 2018. These measures raise concerns about the government's commitment to supporting low-income Ontarians during a period of economic uncertainty and rising living costs.

On the income and employment front, Ontario's poverty rate sits at 18.4%. The provincial minimum wage remains at $17.20/hour while estimates for a living wage is estimated at $19.50-$26.00/hour. Despite skyrocketing living costs, social assistance rates remain far below the poverty line (a maximum of $733/month for OW and $1,368/month for ODSP for a single person, and further marginal increases for families with children being largely inadequate).

The current allocations for healthcare and education fail to address the significant ongoing challenges in these sectors. Ontario’s health care system continues to grapple with staffing shortages and service backlogs, while the education sector faces issues related to infrastructure and resource constraints.

There are large looming cuts of $1.2 billion from post-secondary education and freezes to all other public school funding, with no new support for special education or student nutrition. The cuts and freezes to the education system are hurting many students and families across the province. The TDSB, the largest school board in the province, is being severely impacted as essential extracurricular activities and support staff continue to be cut.

The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) is confronting a projected $58 million deficit for the 2025–26 school year. Under the Education Act, Trustees must pass a balanced budget, prompting consideration of significant funding cuts. In April, the Minister of Education announced that the TDSB deficit recovery plan had been rejected and that a financial investigator would be appointed to address the TDSB’s ongoing deficit. 

The TDSB has identified a number of proposed measures to reduce the deficit, including the closure of over half of the board's 66 swimming pools and the elimination of 86 aquatic instructor positions, aiming to save approximately $12.8 million. Additionally, the board is contemplating cutting the Itinerant Music Instructor (IMI) program, which provides specialized music education to elementary students across 277 schools. This move is projected to save $4 million but would replace professional music instruction with a limited pilot program in 50 schools, potentially leaving many students without access to quality music education. The TDSB is also considering increasing class sizes, cutting outdoor education, and cuts to staffing, and continuing education. The TDSB has already implemented some operational changes, including increasing permit fees for space rentals, which may have a significant negative impact on community access to school spaces.

These proposed cuts are the result of systemic underfunding from the provincial government. Provincial funding has not kept pace with inflation, resulting in approximately $1,500 less funding per student. The TDSB has a chronic structural deficit—it spends more than it gets in funding each year. Among other areas, the TDSB is significantly underfunded for staff salaries and special education.

Housing

Ontario’s housing crisis continues to deepen, with over 268,000 households on the waitlist for subsidized housing and average wait times for supportive housing stretching from five to seven years. Over half of renters live in unaffordable and inadequate housing, while weak rent controls and Above Guideline Increases (AGI) expose tenants to displacement and financial strain. 

Only $5.5M has been allocated to boost the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit and only $20M has been allocated to expand shelter capacity across the entire province, which will not come close to providing sufficient help to the estimated 81,515 Ontarians experiencing homelessness. Despite the government’s ambitious housing targets, the 2025 budget offers very limited commitments to expand non-market or supportive housing.

Supervised Consumption Sites and Criminalizing Homelessness

Additionally, the government's decision to restrict SCS, forcing the closure of 10 out of 17 sites across Ontario, will further endanger lives. These sites have reversed over 1,500 overdoses in the past two years and are often the only link to health and social services for people who are precariously housed. The provincial government is also taking further steps to criminalize unhoused residents. The recently proposed Safer Municipalities Act 2024 would grant municipalities and police enhanced authority to dismantle encampments and enforce prohibitions on public drug use. Community advocates such as the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH), have expressed concerns that the legislation may criminalize homelessness without addressing its root causes, such as the need for a more housing-focused approach, emphasizing the importance of increased investments in supportive and affordable housing, as well as mental health and addiction services. In response, community-based advocates are organizing a rally on Thursday, May 29th at 11:30 am at Queen's Park (South Lawn).

The budget falls short on the issues the average Ontarian faces. Significant investments in new highways (projected 30 billion to build the 413 and Bradford Bypass over the next decade) and upgraded policing infrastructure ($1 billion to expand the Ontario Police College and build a new OPP academy as well as $57 million for two new border patrol helicopters) have been prioritized over critical healthcare, housing, education, and social services and infrastructure. Funding for health care, education, support for children, and community and social services are stagnant or being cut when accounting for inflation and population growth projections, at a time when that support is urgently needed. 

Ontario’s 2025 budget reflects a missed opportunity to invest in people and communities who are struggling. At a time of rising costs of living, trade wars, and mounting pressures on public services, the government has chosen to prioritize highways, police infrastructure and corporate subsidies over human-centred investments. Failing to meaningfully increase income supports, sustain supervised consumption sites, invest in affordable and supportive housing, or strengthen education and healthcare systems signals a disregard for the urgent challenges faced by everyday Ontarians.